"Actor: Shauan Dooley"

• South Riding | DVD | (07/03/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Andrew Davies' sparkling adaptation of Winifred Holtby's acclaimed novel. Insightful warm and full of memorable characters South Riding tells a fraught love story and paints a panoramic portrait of a between-the-wars Yorkshire community. In depression-hit Thirties Britain Sarah Burton returns from London to her Yorkshire hometown to take up the post of headmistress at a struggling girls' school. Full of ambition she is determined to create a great school and inspire her girls. As Sarah struggles against the crippling poverty of the district she meets those at the heart of the local community: her brilliant but poor student Lydia Holly; the county's first woman Alderman Mrs Beddows whose sensible demeanour belies a girlish heart; the noble but ludicrous Methodist preacher Councillor Huggins; Sarah's socialist suitor Joe Astell and the proud haunted and almost ruined landowner Robert Carne - a man Sarah finds herself drawn towards even though he stands for everything she detests... Engrossing and entertaining South Riding vividly brings to life a rural community on the brink of change.