The Long Song Review

The Long Song is a BBC miniseries based on a novel by the recently deceased Andrea Levy. What was created was a lavish, humorous and tragic period drama.

The Long Song follows July (Tamara Lawrance), a house slave for the Mortimer family at the beginning of the 19th century. It is a time where slaves are starting to rebel and slavery is coming to an end. July views the social and political changes in Jamaica and finds love and tragedy over the period.

The Long Song was produced by Heyday Films, the company behind Harry Potter and Paddington film franchises – so they are a company with a high pedigree.  And it shows considering the cast, costumes, locations, and cinematography.

Period dramas are extremely common in the UK. There are gritty adaptations to more romanticise tales. The Long Song‘s USP is it’s told from a slave’s perspective. And the series succeeds on this point. Most audiences, even a British one, are more aware of America’s experience of abolishing slavery. The Long Song shows what happens in the Caribbean – it was a time where slaves were rebelling more frequently, making it more dangerous for slave owners.

Within the plantation there were two types of slaves – house slaves and slaves who worked the land. Whilst house slaves were subject to physical punishment they conditions were more comfortable than the field slaves. Although July was threatened by her mistress, Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell) she knows that she’s in no real danger of being sent back to the fields. July is basically a surrogate daughter. Lennie Henry played a senior slave who was pretty much in charge of the household must have had some education for his position.

The field slaves have to work in harsh conditions, whipped by slave drivers and live in shacks. July’s mother was raped by one of the slave drivers and it was clear that this happened to other female slaves.

The series shows that slavery ended for two reasons in the British Empire. The slaves were rebelling and becoming harder to control. The first episode was set during the Christmas Rebellion and the slaves’ on July’s plantation were able to take over, forcing the mistress to run away and the owner to commit suicide. Even though the rebellion was quelled it was clear slavery was becoming harder to maintain.

They were was also a moral campaign in Britain to abolish slavery. This was shown through Jack Lowden’s character, Robert Goodwin. He’s the son of the moral activist in London who played an important part in the abolish slavery. And Robert is determined to make the plantation work after the slaves are given their freedom.

The Long Song addresses the attempts of reconciliation after abolition. In the third episode Robert wants to be a good man and is driven to breaking point. The plantation ends up being on the edge of ruin when the harvest season clashes with the workers’ time off. The series makes no bones about it, Robert offers compromises and states that if the crops aren’t harvested the workers won’t have jobs. But the freed slaves were stubborn, leading to Robert taking harsh retribution and he ends up becoming incredibly racist.

July acts as the audience surrogates – the eyes for all this political and social change. She didn’t have much impact on the wider events, especially during the first episode. As well as this broader context July does have a personal story. She falls in love, has children and suffers tragedy throughout her life. It was at times a Dickensian style story.

Despite the heavy subject matter The Long Song was also fairly humorous. Most of this was concentration on Hayley Atwell’s character. Caroline is shown to be spoiled and child-like who becomes irate when she doesn’t get her way. The character was similar to Queen Anne in The Favourite – a mentally unstable woman in a position of power. The humour helps prevents the series from being too heavy.

The series had cinematic quality even though it was set in the confines of the plantation. The show was shot on location and like any costume drama the production values were of the highest order. There were great looking costumes, scenery, and cinematography. The slave rebellion and Richard’s war with the workers added to cinematic quality because of the scale of the scenes and chaos that was happening.

The Long Song was an excellent mini-series that looked at a fascinating period of history and gives audiences an alternative perspective.