Banished: episode guide

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Part 1

UK: Thu, March 05, 2015 (BBC Two, 9pm)
Australia: Thu, June 25, 2015 (BBC First)
New Zealand: Fri, June 26, 2015 (UKTV, 8:30)
UK Ratings: 3.4 million viewers
Written by Jimmy McGovern
Directed by Daniel Percival

New South Wales, 1788. Dawn is breaking over a ramshackle camp where the British convicts transported on the First Fleet are waking up to another sweltering hot day alongside their Royal Navy marine guards and their masters. In this fledgling penal colony anything can happen — and death stalks everybody.

Convict Elizabeth Quinn awakes screaming from a nightmare. She must get out of her beloved Tommy Barrett's bunk and the convict men's dorm fast, both are prohibited and punishable.

She runs, but Private Buckley the most loathed soldier, catches her. A scuffle ensues and Elizabeth is dragged before her social superiors: Governor Phillip; his trusted adviser the colony's judge advocate Captain Collins; Major Ross; Reverend Johnson and his wife Mary assigned to impose punishment. Resolute in refusing to expose the man she loves; knowing full well Tommy would hang for sleeping with her, Elizabeth is sentenced to 25 lashes.

But will her principled and headstrong Tommy be so enraged by this punitive decision that he intervenes? If he does he will hang.

Elsewhere the morning reveille has sounded and Elizabeth and Tommy's dearest friend, James Freeman finds himself in serious trouble. Menacing convict Marston, the camp's indispensable blacksmith, is stealing James's food and without his paltry sustenance he will die.

With supplies running out, who can James turn to for help and justice — marooned as he is on this inhospitable shoreline between the impenetrable bush and the mighty Pacific Ocean? At nightfall torches are lit and banging is heard as the hangman's scaffold is erected. In the cold light of day will love and compassion prevail or will the iron fist triumph?

Cast:

  • Orla Brady as Anne Meredith
  • Ewen Bremner as Reverend Johnson
  • MyAnna Buring as Elizabeth Quinn
  • Ryan Corr as Private MacDonald
  • Brooke Harman as Deborah
  • David Dawson as Captain Collins
  • Ned Dennehy as Letters Molloy
  • Cal MacAninch as Sergeant Timmins
  • Rory McCann as Marston
  • Joseph Millson as Major Ross
  • Nick Moss as Spragg
  • Adam Nagaitis as Private Buckley
  • Genevieve O'Reilly as Mrs Johnson
  • Jordan Patrick Smith as Private Mulrooney
  • Russell Tovey as James Freeman
  • Julian Rhind-Tutt as Tommy Barrett
  • Joanna Vanderham as Katherine McVitie
  • David Walmsley as Stubbins
  • David Wenham as Governor Arthur Phillip