The Village

“The Village” is a BBC television series crafted by Peter Moffat, set in a Derbyshire village during the 20th century. The inaugural season, which aired in the spring of 2013, spans the years from 1914 to 1920. Moffat envisions this as the beginning of a 42-hour epic, with a second season slated for 2014 to extend the narrative into the 1920s. Future installments are planned to explore periods such as the Second World War and the post-war austerity in Britain.

The series unfolds the life of a Derbyshire village through the perspective of Bert Middleton, the central character. Bert is depicted at various stages of his life: as a child by Bill Jones, as a teenager by Alfie Stewart, and as an elderly man by David Ryall. John Simm portrays Bert’s father, John Middleton, a farmer in the Peak District struggling with alcoholism, while Maxine Peake plays Bert’s mother, Grace. Peake, a favored actress of Moffat, has been described by him as “the best actress of her generation” and has appeared in his previous works, “Criminal Justice” and “Silk.”

Moffat has expressed his ambition to create a ‘British Heimat,’ referencing Edgar Reitz’s monumental German series “Heimat,” which chronicled the life of a family in the Rhineland from 1919 to 1982. Unlike “Downton Abbey,” this series presents a narrative from the working-class perspective, where domestic workers are expected to turn away when the master passes by.