Daughters Of The Dust (PG)
BFI, £14.99
Julie Dash's 1991 film would be remarkable enough in its own right thanks to its pacing, its themes, its costume design and its procession of dreamlike set-pieces. But throw into the mix the fact that it was the first feature by a female African-American director to gain widespread release, as well as its huge influence on Beyonce's film version of Lemonade, and you have the makings of an unsung classic.
It's also a neat history lesson. Essentially a portrait of a sea-side get-together for the sprawling Peazant family, it's narrated by the unborn daughter of one of the central characters – who is pregnant because she has been raped – and set on one of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina. These are home to the Gullah people, descendants of slaves who still speak with a distinct dialect and have their own separate, Creole-style culture. Dash grew up in New York, but her family are Gullahs, and it's their experience of life, community and, increasingly, migration which drive this powerful work.
The year is 1902. The film opens with two Peazant women returning by boat from the mainland to Ibo's Landing, the family home. One is devout Viola (Cheryl Lynn Bruce), who has moved to Philadelphia. The other is Yellow Mary (Barbara-O), a sex worker, who's accompanied by her light-skinned female lover, Trula (Trula Hoosier). On the island are pregnant Eula (Alva Rogers), her husband Eli (Adisa Anderson), various cousins and in-laws, and fierce matriarch Nana Peazant (Cora Lee Day), the only character not wearing white. There's also a photographer, a Mr Snead (Tommy Hicks), who will commemorate the event while the children play and the women cook gumbo on the beach. The sun rises and then sets, and the characters talk and reminisce as past, present and future intertwine. A visual treat deserving of wide acclaim.
Sykes: The Complete Series (12)
Network, £89.99
You'd have to be a strange kind of British sitcom completist to want to spend £89 on a 12-disc set of all seven series of Eric Sykes's eponymous sitcom, which ran for most of the 1970s and probably would have continued into the 1980s had longtime co-star Hattie Jacques not died. But if you are that strange kind of British sitcom completist, then here it is: 68 episodes, running from 1972 to 1979, and featuring Sykes and Jacques in their pomp, as well as regulars Richard Wattis (as snobbish next door neighbour Mr Brown), Deryck Guyler (as local bobby Corky Turnball) and Joan Sims (as Madge Kettlewell). Chief among the guest stars – you'll catch him in episode six of the first series – is Peter Sellars, who died just three months before Jacques, in July 1980.
It's as dated as you'd expect. But even at a distance of 40 years it retains a pleasing weirdness thanks in part to the premise – Sykes and Jacques play twins who live together: really? – and to the (not unreasonable) suspicion that the cast are barely keeping things together. It was filmed in front of a live studio audience and in fact some of the funniest moments are the series of out-takes, bloopers and re-shoots which feature in the extras package. Most of these concentrate on Eric Sykes himself, though increasingly Jacques is the one around whom there's the most interest: her stormy marriage to John le Mesurier was the subject of a BBC Four drama starring Ruth Jones, proof that she's as iconic today as any of the male comedians of her generation.
Harlots: Series One (15)
ITV Studios Global Entertainment, £14.99
Broadcast earlier this year on ITV Encore, the ITV drama channel that airs on Sky's digital platform, this bawdy eight-parter set in 18th century London is notable for having a writer/director/producer team made up entirely of women. Its creators are EastEnders star Alison Newman and playwright Moira Buffini, who scripted the 2011 film version of Jane Eyre. It's written by Buffini, and the producers are Alison Owen (Lily Allan's mum) and Debra Hayward, who together form Monumental Pictures. The distaff side of the case is pretty stellar cast too, headed by Samantha Morton and Lesley Manville, with Jessica Brown Findlay in tow.
Following in the footsteps of French drama Maison Close, which was set in a 19th century Parisian brothel, Harlots turns to mid-18th century London and the reign of George III for a series based (loosely) on historian Hallie Rubenhold's study of the Covent Garden sex industry. Rubenhold's source material was Harris's List Of Covent Garden Ladies, an annual directory of the prostitutes working in Georgian London. It's the excitement surrounding the publication of the new edition which opens the series, as the girls in the down-at-heel house run by ambitious Madam Margaret Wells (Morton) pore over the entries looking for each other's listing. Ranged against Wells – let's just say they have history – is upmarket Madam Lydia Quigley (Manville). Brown Findlay plays Well's eldest daughter Charlotte, mistress to young Sir George Howard (Hugh Skinner, Phoebe Waller-Bridge's on-off boyfriend in Fleabag). What follows is murder, skullduggery, intrigue high and low, a feast of bucking, naked flesh – and even an orgy or two.
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