Treasure islands
EVE HEWSON AND HIMESH PATEL play two love-struck pioneers during New Zealand’s gold rush
THERE’S AN INTRIGUING mix of love, murder, magic and revenge in BBC1’S lavish new period drama
The Luminaries, set on the west coast of New Zealand at the height of the country’s 1860s gold rush.
Based on Eleanor Catton’s award-winning novel, the six-part mystery follows Anna Wetherell as she arrives in the southern hemisphere from England to forge a new life.
‘It’s so much more than a period drama,’ says Eve Hewson, the daughter of U2 singer Bono, who plays Anna. ‘It’s a story about how the world corrupts a young woman and forces her to confront who she is, yet it’s also a love story and a murder mystery.’
On the last day of her voyage to the town of Hokitika, Anna has a romantic encounter with the charismatic Emery Staines (former
Eastenders actor Himesh Patel), who has travelled to New Zealand to dig for gold, and fills Anna’s head with great expectations of what the future could hold.
‘Anna meets Emery on her first day in New Zealand, which happens to be her birthday,’
says Hewson, 28, who starred in
Sky Atlantic’s The Knick and Tom Hanks movie Bridge of Spies. ‘It also turns out to be Emery’s birthday. They have this beautiful and deep connection. It’s love at first sight.’
BETRAYED
But after a chance meeting with fortune teller and brothel madam Lydia Wells (Eva Green), Anna finds fate leading her down a different path. As she falls further under Lydia’s spell, Anna is drawn into a mysterious blackmail plot involving opium, gold, shipwreck, fraud, and false identity.
‘Anna gets off the ship and all hell breaks loose,’ says Hewson. ‘Lydia tears Anna and Emery apart, so the rest of the story is about them trying to find each other again.
‘Lydia has money, a wealth of knowledge and she’s this beautiful, put-together woman. Anna tries to become like her, but Lydia plays off that and uses Anna’s eagerness to manipulate her.’
With the series switching back and forth between two timelines, in this week’s opening episode we also see Anna languishing in jail wearing a dress laced with gold, framed for the murder of Lydia’s husband Crosbie (Ewen Leslie). But what really happened?
Writer Catton says that recreating the complexity of her novel on screen was no mean feat. The adaptation took seven years to complete after she made the decision to restructure her tale.
‘I wrote 200 drafts of the first episode alone,’ she explains. ‘When I open the novel now, it feels very