Little Birds

HUGH SKINNER AND JUNO TEMPLE star in a torrid Morocco-set period drama

TAKE A SUMPTUOUS glimpse at Sky Atlantic’s provocative and compelling 1950s-set drama Little Birds, airing from 4 August.

Inspired by the erotic stories of Anaïs Nin, the six-part series, filmed in Spain and Manchester, centres on US heiress Lucy Savage, played by Dirty John’s Juno Temple, as she arrives in Morocco in 1955 from New York.

Lucy has been sent to North Africa to marry English lord Hugo Cavendish-smyth (The Windsors’ Hugh Skinner). But Hugo is torn between Lucy and his charismatic

Anglo-egyptian lover, Adham Abaza (Raphael Acloque). Meanwhile, Lucy is soon caught up in the hedonistic passions and complex politics that are a way of life in the steamy city of Tangier.

EXCITING TIMES

Among the colourful characters that Lucy encounters is dominatrix Cherifa Lamour (Yumna Marwan), to whom diplomats and expats, along with Secretary Pierre Vaney (Jeanmarc Barr), are tantalisingly drawn. Matt Lauria co-stars as enigmatic artist and bartender Bill, Nina Sosanya plays actor Lili von X, Rossy de Palma is flamboyant Contessa Mandrax, David Costabile is Lucy’s controlling arms-manufacturer father, Grant, and Amy Landecker plays his wife, Vanessa.

‘Lucy has this hunger for things in life that women in the 1950s were not supposed to have hungers for,’ says Temple.

‘She arrives in this world that is like falling down a rabbit hole and it is delicious and heightens all of her senses.’