The Gilded Age release date and time: How to watch in the UK

The big-budget drama centres around Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), an aspiring writer whose life is thrown into chaos when she moves from rural Pennsylvania to New York City to live with her old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn (Baranski) and Ada Brook (Nixon).

The wait for The Gilded Age has seemed to go on forever, after the series was first announced in 2019. However, first look images and a trailer for the nine-part series have finally dropped, giving fans a first look at the star-studded cast. Read more about the trailer below.

Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming series The Gilded Age including the series' release date, plot and cast information.

The Gilded Age UK release date

The Gilded Age is released in the UK on Sky Atlantic and NOW on Tuesday 25th January 2022 at 2am BST.

It will then air again at 9pm on Sky Atlantic but is available on-demand the same day.

This is the day following the premiere in the US on HBO on the 24th January 2022.

How to watch The Gilded Age in the UK

The Gilded Age is available to watch in the UK on Sky Atlantic and on streaming service NOW.

The 10-part series will be available on the platform in the UK & Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria & Switzerland.

New episodes are being released weekly and are available to watch every Tuesday.

The show is available on an Entertainment Pass, which costs £9.99 per month, with a seven-day free trial available for all first-time subscribers.

To subscribe, go to the NOW TV website and create an account, then click the TV Passes tab, and select which passes you would like to subscribe to.

Meanwhile, the show is also available to watch on HBO Max in the US, the streaming service from HBO which is currently only available in the US.

For US viewers, a subscription is available for $14.99 a month.

How many episodes are there of The Gilded Age?

The Gilded Age season 1 will consist of nine episodes aired over nine weeks.

The following episode titles and the UK air dates are available below.

1. Never the New - 25th January 2022
2. Money Isn't Everything - 1st February 2022
3. Face the Music - 8th February 2022
4. A Long Ladder - 15th February 2022
5. Charity Has Two Functions - 22nd February 2022
6. Heads Have Rolled for Less - 29th February 2022
7. Irresistible Change - 8th March 2022
8. Tucked Up in Newport - 15th March 2022
9. Let the Tournament Begin - 22nd March 2022

It also seems that further episodes of The Gilded Age are in the offing too, with plans already in place for a second run.

However, HBO has yet to confirm a second season of The Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age trailer

A trailer has dropped, giving fans a first look at the chaos the main protagonist Marian becomes embroiled in when she moves to New York City to live with her money aunts.

The clip gives fans a glimpse of the conflict between Marian’s stubborn aristocratic aunt Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and George Russel (Morgan Spector).

“I cannot live within Aunt Agnes’ confines,” Marian can be heard saying, before Agnes says: “you must meet the right people in the right way”. Eek.

The Gilded Age cast

Model and actress Louisa Jacobson will play plucky American orphan and protagonist Marian Brook.

The Good Fight and Mamma Mia! actress Christine Baranski has also been cast as aristocrat Agnes van Rhijn, while Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon plays Ada Brook, Agnes' poor sister.

Tony nominee Denée Benton also stars in The Gilded Age cast as Peggy Scott, an African-American woman who poses as Marian's maid.

In addition, Morgan Spector plays Agnes’ nemesis, George Russell, while Carrie Coon stars as his wife.

The Gilded Age plot: what is the series about?

According to HBO's synopsis, "It’s 1885, and the Gilded Age is in full swing when Marian Brook, a young orphaned daughter of a Southern general, moves in with her rigidly conventional aunts in New York City.

"With the help of Peggy Scott, an African-American woman masquerading as her maid, Marian gets caught up in the dazzling lives of her rich neighbours as she struggles to decide between adhering to the rules or forging her own path in this exciting new world."

Fellowes originally started working with NBC on a US period drama back in 2012, when Downton Abbey mania was peaking across the pond. Originally there were suggestions that he would pen a spin-off prequel detailing the courtship between Lord Robert Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and his rich American wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern).

However, over the past few years that project has evolved away from a straightforward prequel – and has moved over to HBO instead.

"It's not completely HBO picking it up, so much as our producer Bob Greenblatt moved to HBO," Fellowes told RadioTimes.com. "So it's a slightly different thing. But it is now in pre-production and we will make it [in 2020]."

Asked whether the series was a Downton Abbey prequel, he said: "No. That came out of a newspaper, not my mouth. And in fact it's about a period much earlier than Downton, 1880s New York, and its various different types, and things that were going on there."

But Downton fans may still be holding out hope for a brief appearance from a younger Robert – and a younger Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith's character)...

"It might be quite fun to have a young Violet getting into trouble, and her son, Robert, and daughter, Rosamund, who would be in their early teens in the 1880s," Fellowes previously told The Telegraph.

The Gilded Age arrives on Sky Atlantic and NOW on 25th January - you can read our The Gilded Age review here. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.