The Dig
From Friday 29 January (following a limited cinema release) Netflix
In 1939, as war clouds gathered over Europe, archaeological and historical research didn’t simply stop – and certainly not at Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. Here, in the months immediately before the Second World War broke out, archaeologist Basil Brown spent the late spring and summer excavating one of a number of burial mounds at a site that has subsequently become world-famous.
What he discovered was extraordinary: an Anglo-Saxon ship burial where, although little of the timber had survived, the outline of the craft was so perfectly preserved that it was possible to see its form and to work out how it had been constructed. Even repairs were visible. In itself, this would have been remarkable enough, but the site – where work was ultimately overseen by Cambridge archaeologist Charles Phillips – would also be revealed as a royal grave, perhaps that of Rædwald of East Anglia, c599–c624, and contained some fabulous artefacts.
Based on a 2007 novel written by John Preston and directed by Simon Stone from a script by co-creator Moira Buffini, The Dig takes viewers back to these heady days of discovery, albeit with quite a bit of dramatic licence.
Heading the cast, Carey Mulligan stars as Edith Pretty, the landowner who employed Brown, who is played by Ralph Fiennes. Lily James takes the role of archaeology student Peggy Preston who, surrounded by sexist and domineering men at the dig, forges friendships with Brown and Pretty. Familiar faces rounding out the impressive cast include Johnny Flynn, Ben Chaplin, Ken Stott and Monica Dolan.
To judge by the advance publicity, the narrative of the film will make much of the class conflict thrown up by Brown being both self-taught and of modest means.