The Mill

I wasn't expecting to like this so much. I found the writing and acting to be very good. I love when I get an interesting history lesson along with some engaging drama. Time we'll spent. Videography and costume quality were also quite good. I wish there were more seasons.

Needed one more season. This acting was great in this .

This clever Victorian drama set in 1830's England depicts the suffering and hardship of the working person through a time of change. And with great actresses like Kerrie Hayes who plays the role of apprentice Ester Price you can see the hardship those people endured through such difficult times. This drama passes through the events like the abolishment of slavery to the introduction of the poor law and as time moves on in the series we the affects of those events to take hold with the character's and environment. Finally like I mentioned before, this series has some brilliant actors & actresses that reflect hardship and evolution of the way who were poor are treated.

As a descendant of Cotton mill workers from south carolina, i can tell you that the potrayal of the hard life these people endured are very spot on. I had an aunt who went to school and the teacher paddled her hand, she told her mom she was not going back to that school, so she got a job in the mill at the ripe old age of 9. I heard stories of the bell that would be rung each morning to wake the workers to go to there daily jobs at the Vaucluse Mill in South carolina, this is a great show.

I caught the first series of this last year on 4 OD and thought it fantastic. As a history graduate with an ongoing passion for social history I get tired of seeing series with a polite nod to the realities of the day and then taking their characters down some nice 21st century lifestyle & morality trip.

Plus, rarely have I come across anything contemporary that takes the point of view of the industrial revolution worker. And they did it so well in this!

They managed to really capture the detail of their daily lives. The minutiae of how life actually was for a mill worker at that time. But in a witty, sad or otherwise poignant way.

And in to all of this well researched history of conditions & of the Mill in question were wonderfully woven human stories of fellowship, sorrow, courage & cowardice. And the humour attached to the 'small stories'.. wonderful! And some I know have come straight from the archives of the Mill in question (I googled it).

The character Esther, or the actress who played her (Kerrie Hayes), or probably a mixture of the two made for compelling viewing especially.

I'm very sad there won't be a third series, it's probably because of the reviews about it 'being too grim'. Obviously 'the enlightened' won't accept such subject matter being depicted at any level lower than Oliver The Musical or Eastenders.