Michelle Keegan remains a mystery in Ten Pound Poms teaser
The exclusive new clip reveals just a little more about Keegan's mysterious new character in Ten Pound Poms.
The BBC's new period drama Ten Pound Poms premieres on BBC One and iPlayer this Sunday and we couldn't be more excited.
As well as exploring a snippet of lesser-known history, Ten Pound Poms boasts a cast full of familiar faces that includes Andor's Faye Marsay, Luther's Warren Brown and Brassic's Michelle Keegan.
The six-part series follows them and other Brits as they leave dreary post-war Britain in 1956 to embark on a life-altering adventure on the other side of the world, in Australia. For only £10, they believe they're venturing down under for better jobs, houses, prospects and sunshine but actually, are greeted with a harsh reality of cramped living conditions, prejudice and homesickness.
As if excitement for the new series wasn't already building up, RadioTimes.com can share a sneak peek at the drama in an exclusive clip.
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In the teaser, we get our first proper look at Keegan's character of Kate Thorne. She's just arrived at the migrant hostel where JJ Walker (Stephen Curry) is showing her to her new accommodation and asking if she's got any work lined up now that she's in Australia, to which she replies that she'll be working as a nurse.
He carries her bag into the underwhelming digs, and upon entering, Kate is confronted with little more than a single bed, a bed pan and some tired looking furniture. "It's ... beautiful," she says.
"So he just let you go then, did he? Across the other side of the world without him?" JJ asks, underlining the fact that Kate has travelled alone without her fiancé. "He got cold feet," Kate replies. But is she telling the truth? Or is there something more behind her cool and calm façade?
We do know that Keegan's character is slightly different from the rest of the cast, in that her storyline remains more of a mystery – and the intriguing clip only seems to highlight that.
According to Keegan, who spoke to the BBC about her new role: "My character Kate is a nurse who has left the UK to go to Australia for a very different reason from the rest of the characters. She has an emotional connection to the country and we find out as the show progresses what her intentions are and why she has gone there."
Joining Keegan in the cast for the new series, which is produced by Eleven (the same team behind Netflix's Sex Education), is Marsay as Annie Roberts and Brown as her husband Terry. Unlike Kate, they've jumped at the chance to move to Australia after seeing a newspaper ad promising a better life abroad.
Annie convinces her husband and two teenage children to emigrate after a particularly tumultuous time in the UK, brought on by Terry's struggles with PTSD in light of the second world war.
Read more:
- Michelle Keegan stars in first trailer for Ten Pound Poms
- Michelle Keegan sports 1950s look in new pictures from BBC drama Ten Pound Poms
And that's not all – the series is also home to multiple overlapping stories and characters that really demonstrate the different sides of the real-life Assisted Migration scheme of the time.
As per the synopsis, we'll also meet Bill (Leon Ford), who has "lost his family business back home and is so desperate to prove he’s living the Australian dream that he’ll stop at nothing in order to get a lifestyle he can’t sustain".
We'll also meet teenager Stevie (Declan Coyle), who "comes from a troubled background and hopes to use this new adventure to escape his oppressive father. Meanwhile, Ron (Rob Collins), an Indigenous Australian war veteran, struggles with feeling like an outsider in his own country".
You can check out our review of Ten Pound Poms here.
Ten Pound Poms will premiere on BBC One and iPlayer at 9pm on Sunday 14th May, airing weekly on BBC One, with all episodes available on iPlayer immediately.
Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight.
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