A tale of pride and prejudice: ‘The Long Song’ explores the history of slavery in Jamaica

With so many people stuck at home these days, television can be a welcome distraction, featuring shows that make us laugh or cry or both.

Some TV programs go beyond mere entertainment to educate and inspire, and one such miniseries is headed to prime time thanks to PBS.

A woman recounts her life as a slave on a sugar cane plantation in early 19th-century colonial Jamaica in Masterpiece’s “The Long Song,” premiering Sunday, Jan.

31, on PBS. Based on the novel of the same name by Andrea Levy, the three-part miniseries stars Tamara Lawrance (“King Charles III,” 2017) as young slave July and Hayley Atwell (“Agent Carter”) as her abusive mistress, Caroline Mortimer, the sister of the plantation’s owner.

Doña Croll (“Eastenders”) portrays the older version of July, effectively serving as the program’s narrator as she writes her memoir about her transition from slave to free woman around the time of the Christmas Rebellion of 1831, a slave uprising that marked the beginning of the end of slavery in Jamaica.

July recalls how she was ripped away from her mother, Kitty (Sharon Duncan-brewster, “Bad Girls”), as a child to train as a lady’s maid for Caroline.

“The Long Song” has already captivated U.K. audiences as the miniseries aired on BBC in December 2018 and received rave reviews. The novel was adapted for the small screen by Sarah Williams (“Wallis & Edward”), who also adapted Levy’s “Small Island” into an Emmy-winning miniseries in 2009.

The late Levy, who died in 2019 after battling breast cancer for more than a decade, was taken with Lawrance from the get-go, as she explained in an interview posted on the BBC’S website.

“The first time I saw Tamara Lawrance’s face,i said,‘yes,her. She’s July. That was it,’” Levy said.

“And then I saw her audition tapes,and I said,‘yes,yes,yes, that’s July moving. That’s her. You’ve got her.’”

Young British actress Lawrance is best known for her role as Prince Harry’s republican girlfriend in the 2017 TV movie “King Charles III.” Her other credits include television’s “Undercover” and “No Offence,” as well as the horror film “Kindred” (2020).