A largely female audience packed out the National Film Theatre on London’s South Bank to get a first look at the new series of Poldark, the hit BBC 1 period drama starring Aidan Turner, which return on Sunday nights from 4 September.
And they only had to wait 15 minutes to see his rippling torso, made famous in the first series during a now notorious grass-scything scene. The distinct creaking of cinema seats could be heard as the action shifted underground and the gym-honed landowner was seen hacking away at a particularly intransigent seam, naked from the waist up.
The screening was also attended by Turner himself, his onscreen wife, Eleanor Tomlinson, executive producer Damien Timmer and writer Debbie Horsfield, who adapted Winston Graham’s Cornwall-set novels and has written all 10 episodes of the new series.
When we last saw Captain Ross Poldark, he was being marched across the cliffs by the law, arrested for looting a wrecked ship and attacking a customs officer. Despite philanthropic motives, the handsome mine owner looks set for prison or worse as his poor wife gazes out across the angry sea, still mourning the recent death of their daughter, Julia.
No time has passed in this latest instalment as the brooding do-gooder awaits trial at Bodmin and his arch-rival George Warleggan does all he can to make sure that proceedings are biased against him.
As in the first season, it’s the jaw-dropping Cornish coastline that steals most scenes. But this is far more than an impossibly beautiful painting, peopled with equally gorgeous human stars. Horsfield’s script lifts the sometimes mawkish source material off the page and breathes modern life into it.
“There’s a storm coming,” says Ross as the waves pummel the Cornish rocks below. Producers must have debated long and hard about the reappearance of their star’s famous midriff and when the moment came, the mass craning of necks was rewarded with a palpable release of tension.
“It’s pretty hot underground,” said a grinning Horsfield at the Q&A session afterwards as Turner hugged himself, smirked and looked somewhat embarrassed. “You just oil yourself up and get on with it,” he said bashfully. Female audience audience members roared their approval.
This series seems likely to replicate the success of the first, with a script that allows the flawed humanity of the characters to leak through.
There is exuberance and humour to offset the darker plot twists, and Horsfield’s dialogue threads the whole thing through with enough light to balance out the shade. In the auditorium, the climax of episode one drew gasps from the audience as one of the main characters took drastic action.
This was swiftly followed by a truly dramatic trailer for the rest of the series featuring death, infidelity, a wedding, a funeral and a mob with flaming torches.
The series is made by independent production house Mammoth Screen, which is set to clean up in the Sunday night ratings because it is also behind Victoria, ITV’s period drama starring Doctor Who’s Jenna Coleman as the young British monarch, which is scheduled at the same time as Poldark.
