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| The Paradise (TV series) | |
|---|---|
| Show name | The Paradise |
| Genre | Period drama |
| Based on | Émile Zola's novel L'Assommoir |
| Writer | Bill Gallagher |
| Starring | Joanna Vanderham, Emun Elliott, Sarah Lancashire, Ben Miller |
| Composer | Mark Thomas |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Num episodes | 16 |
| Runtime | 60 minutes |
| Company | Mammoth Screen |
| Network | BBC One |
| First aired | 2012 |
| Last aired | 2013 |
The Paradise (TV series) is a British period drama television series broadcast on BBC One and produced by Mammoth Screen. Adapted from Émile Zola's novel L'Assommoir, the series relocates the narrative to a Victorian-era England setting and examines social class, commerce, and gender in a late-19th-century department store milieu. The show stars Joanna Vanderham as a young provincial woman who rises from poverty to prominence amid the competing ambitions of aristocrats, merchants, and artisans.
The story follows Denise Lovett, a seamstress from a northern mill town who arrives in Monmouth and secures work at the newly opened Paradise, an ambitious department emporium founded by French expatriate businesspeople and financed by local industrial capitalists. Over two series the narrative charts Denise's personal ascent, romantic entanglements with the store's heir, and clashes with proprietors, rival retailers, and social elites from nearby London, Manchester, and Liverpool. Subplots involve labor disputes, class tensions among shop assistants and clerks, and the expansion of consumer culture driven by innovations in retail and merchandising pioneered in cities like Paris and Leeds.
Primary cast members include Joanna Vanderham as Denise Lovett; Emun Elliott as John Moray, heir to Paradises' fortunes with ties to Glasgow merchant families; Sarah Lancashire as Mrs. Glendenning, a social-climbing local matriarch with connections to provincial gentry; Ben Miller as Mr. James Glendenning, a local entrepreneur and investor; and Elaine Cassidy in recurring roles that intersect with artisan communities and theatrical circles. Supporting performers represent a cross-section of late-Victorian society: shop assistants, warehouse foremen, aristocratic patrons, municipal officials from boroughs such as Birmingham and Sheffield, and itinerant salesmen with links to Leeds and Nottingham. Guest appearances feature actors portraying magistrates, journalists from periodicals like The Times and Punch, and visiting industrialists from continental centers such as Lyon and Brussels.
Developed for BBC One by Bill Gallagher and produced by Mammoth Screen, the series employed location filming in northern English towns to evoke late-19th-century urban landscapes associated with the Industrial Revolution and textile manufacturing. Production design and costume teams consulted collections at institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, and local archives in York to recreate period-appropriate façades, shopfronts, and inventories influenced by pioneering establishments like Harrods, Bonmarché, and early department stores in Paris and Dublin. Cinematography emphasized interiors patterned after the iron-and-glass arcades of Crystal Palace-era exhibition halls, while production management liaised with heritage bodies including English Heritage and regional film offices to stage street sequences, period vehicles, and large crowd scenes.
The series comprises two seasons totaling sixteen hour-long episodes. Each episode centers on commercial cycles tied to seasonal trade—such as winter drapery, summer millinery, and holiday mercantile rushes—reflecting historical retail calendars observed by proprietors in London and provincial centers. Plot arcs include the opening of new departments, boardroom maneuvers mirroring shareholder disputes familiar in 19th century corporate enterprises, and serial cliffhangers that hinge on scandals reported in contemporary newspapers like The Illustrated London News.
Critical response combined praise for production values, costume design, and lead performances with commentary on narrative pacing and adaptation choices. Reviewers in publications referencing cultural institutions such as The Guardian, The Telegraph, and Radio Times compared the series' tone to other period dramas on BBC One and international imports broadcast on networks like PBS and Masterpiece. Awards bodies and guilds noted nominations in categories for design and ensemble work alongside recognition from regional arts councils. Audience figures demonstrated solid viewership across demographic groups in urban centers including Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow.
While inspired by Zola's depiction of urban life and commerce in Paris, the series transposes themes to a British provincial context, engaging with historical phenomena such as the rise of consumer culture, the social mobility afforded by retail labor, and fin-de-siècle attitudes toward class and gender. Costuming and set dressing draw on archival sources from museums and mercantile records in cities like Leicester, Coventry, and Norwich to evoke the material culture of drapery, millinery, and tailoring. The show addresses labor relations resonant with industrial disputes seen in the histories of Cardiff and Newcastle upon Tyne, and poses questions about patronage, philanthropy, and civic ambition among local elites modeled on Victorian benefactors profiled in municipal histories.
The series was released on DVD and digital platforms with supplementary materials including behind-the-scenes features on production design, costume research, and adaptation from Zola's novel. International broadcasters licensed the show for markets in North America, Europe, and Australasia, where it aired on channels and services associated with period drama programming. The adaptation sparked renewed interest in stage and radio treatments of Zola and Victorian retail narratives, prompting discussions among scholars at institutions like University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and University of Manchester.
Category:British television series Category:Period drama television series Category:BBC television dramas