The BBC’s big new eight-part drama marks a departure for the channel in this kind of time slot. It comes with the stamp of maturity and quality that viewers have come to expect from producer Tony Garnett (Cathy Come Home, Between the Lines) and, for the most part, it comes up with enough of the promised grittiness.
Set in Liverpool in 1920, the Moss family members are trying to make ends meet. They have pawned their pianola but when a street party is proposed to welcome home WWI heroes, they need to get it back to maintain their family’s good reputation...
Ruby (Kerrie Hayes) is the main focus in episode one, “The Chit Behind King Billy”. She is a strong swimmer with a real chance of making it onto the Olympic team. The family have to share resources, even Ruby’s bike that she needs to get to swimming practice. She lands a job at a new corset company, which she mainly takes as it comes with a bike as a perk. The subject allows for the episode’s main source of down-to-earth witticisms: “We never say backside, we say derriere”, says Ruby’s matronly boss.
Things take a darker turn with Ruby’s brother, Billy (Daniel Rigby), who is shunned by his father as a war hero. He was discharged after his ship went down but “he’s got no wounds” according to “Dadda” Moss (Brian McCardie lending a strong presence). Billy’s injuries are of course psychological, leading to a terror of water, so he can barely bring himself to watch his sister swim.
In all, Lilies is a fair cross between a grown-up slice of period fiction and one of those Sunday-afternoon nostalgia trips. By focussing on this working class family struggling to keep afloat with dignity, it avoids the usual clichés of costume drama. Original and absorbing, it deftly juggles the light and dark elements of the story and its high-def attention to period detail seems impeccable. One worth sticking with, I think.
Related stories: new BBC HD programmes for January and February.
