Jericho (2016) is a recent British ITV production that’s just been released for streaming in the US on Acorn.tv. I’ve been following news about the production for a while, so I thought I’d fire it up.
I wasn’t exactly sure how exciting it would be:
“In 1870s Yorkshire, Annie Quaintain, a recently widowed mother, is forced to sell her house and possessions to pay off her late husbands debts. Penniless and shunned by society, Annie and her two children set out for Culverdale Valley, where an enormous railway viaduct is being built. She sets up a lodging house in Jericho, a lawless shanty town full of rough and rowdy workers.”
However, I surprised myself by binge-watching the whole season over about four days! (Okay, so I was feeling supremely lazy about doing anything else…). I don’t know if it was the best thing I’d ever seen, but it was entertaining enough to keep me engaged, and I had fun checking out some of the costumes and boys (and hate-watching aspects of the hair, but then you know me!).
Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife) plays Annie Quaintain, who at the beginning of the series has just been widowed and kicked out of her house with her two children. She randomly hears about work being available in a nearby temporary camp/town set up for builders of a railway viaduct and tromps off with kids in tow to the English Old West.
The setting appears to be the very early 1870s, when ladies are still wearing small hoops but with bustles and draped overskirts. The costumes were designed by Lorna Marie Mugan, whose previous work includes Peaky Blinders and Ripper Street.
Costume designer Lorna Mugan said about this outfit, “I imagined her like a woman out of a Renoir painting – La Parisienne – wearing an electric-blue dress. So although when we meet Annie, she’s officially in mourning, she’s not wearing black but deep blue. At the beginning, we see her in silk, but towards the end of the series she is dressed in tougher, more-forgiving upholstery fabric. Even though she has fallen on hard times, she always maintains a dignified façade” (Jericho: Behind the scenes of a new ITV period drama).
Annie almost immediately sets up a boarding house and becomes an enterprising businesswoman.
They were clearly trying to show Annie’s relaxation — actress Jessica Raine said, “The audience can watch her physically relax, the clothes become more practical, the hair comes down and becomes softer. It is like a releasing of all those strict Victorian morals” (press info).
On her way into town, Annie meets Johnny, played by Hans Matheson. Hans doesn’t usually do it for me — he can be kind of Neanderthal — but for some reason he surprised me with his hotness in this. It helps that he plays a super noble character who very quickly falls in LURVE with Annie. I don’t know, I like a bad boy but I also like them hot and principled.
The nice thing is that there’s an interesting upper-class character — Isabella Lambton — who has a quite smashing wardrobe minus some surprisingly modern prints. So if you’re afraid of too many practical blouses, you get to check this out as well:
You’ve also got other boys:
Back to the ladies:
Sadly the series was cancelled after the one season, but I recommend giving it a whirl!
Have you seen Jericho? What did you think of those potentially crazy prints, and Annie’s hair, and Hans’s hotness or lack thereof?
I haven’t heard about this show…how recently did it come out?
Oh, & Kendra, I’ve got to disagree with you about Hans. He was incredibly sexy as Dr. Zhivago(despite the zzzz pace of that adaptation.) He played the painter Caravaggio in something else awhile back too & tho it was a major cheese fest of a movie, he looked delicious throughout(lots of scenes of Hans’ bum LOL.) He did look miserably boring in The Tudors as Archbishop Cramner, but guess clergy men aren’t supposed to ooze sex appeal?
Explain where you get the Neanderthal-esque vibe from him? I totally KNOW that kinda look/vibe(equally NOT attracted to it either,) but I’ve never gotten it from him.
Lol, I’m right on board with your choice of men…I LOVE the baddies too(hello, Ramsay Bolton from GoT??!!) Now, I feel so let down & confused :(
Regarding the red dress.
1. Red was not actually regarded as a whorish color in the Victorian Age. Manly, powerful, yes. Risqué, no.
2. My little local county museum has two Victorian wedding dresses that are red. This is in a small town area. Another local museum I know of has a red wedding dress as well. I’d venture to say the most popular colors for wedding dresses back in the day here were brown, blue, white, and red, in that order.
Also, blouse and skirt ensembles are so very wrong for the 1870’s. Those are quite disappointing to see.
When this was broadcast the hair irritated me so much that I could never bring myself to watch it – so thank you for showing me what I missed, costume-wise!
I will definitely see if my library has it. If so, I will watch and throw Kirby clips (Bobby pins) at the screen when women are on whose hair down. Prostitutes will be exempt.
Ot just hit me!!!
This is the super-evil Lady Jane Rochford from PBS!!!!!
You are so right! Those prints made me think of IKEA textiles. Especially the circles.
I love this review but I have 2 points to bring up. First the lack of an updo on Martha. Young girls in their early teens would not have their hair done up at that time. That was a right of passage to signal that they were of marriageable age and much fuss would be made when a girl started wearing “long dresses and their hair up.” Though I do agree that her mother should have her hair completely up the entire series with perhaps a few straggles when working hard.
The second point is the green dress that Isabella wears is more correct than the brighter dress that the Madam is wearing. Around the 1870’s it was discovered that the arsenic used to set the vivid greens that were popular at that time was actually deadly and would leach through the fabric and be absorbed into your skin. So most of the upper classes stopped wearing them.
The blue and white prints are very Japanese (shibori-like), and not entirely wrong for 1870’s Japan. 1870’s Yorkshire – most likely not.
Yes, I did see an article where (the actress? the costume designer?) talked about these as being Japanese prints, which I can totally accept, and yes Japonisme was totally a thing in the West of this era… but I’ve just never seen anything like it, in this period, in Western fashion. 1930s, yes.
This is my sort of gut reaction also; however, I’ve periodically been pretty surprised at how modern some of the prints they used throughout Victorian 19th century. I can’t say I’ve seen anything quite like these, just that I’ve been surprised by others so that I *might* not dismiss them outright.
I haven’t watched this yet, but the practical blouse outfits and the hairstyles remind me sooo much of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman – which, in my book, is a good thing and gets a pass for nostalgia. I might have to give this a try.
I keep scrolling past this on Acorn but haven’t watched it yet. I may have to now. :)
And I totally agree on Hans Matheson. Neanderthal-y is a good way to put it!