Down to Earth was a light-hearted BBC One television drama series first broadcast in 2000 about a couple who start a new life on a Devon farm. The early episodes of the series were based on a series of books written by Faith Addis about their real-life move from London to Devon.
This article does not cite any sources. (November 2017) |
Down to Earth | |
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Created by | Ashley Pharoah |
Starring | Warren Clarke Pauline Quirke Ellie Beaven Toby Ross-Bryant Alexandra Stone Angela Griffin Ian Kelsey Inga Brooksby Thomas Byrne Charlotte Redpath Ricky Tomlinson Denise Welch Zara Dawson Shelley Conn Elizabeth Bennett Ram John Holder Finn Atkins Robert James-Collier Marc Ryan-Jordan |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 5 |
No. of episodes | 40 |
Production | |
Running time | approx. 60 mins |
Release | |
Original network | BBC One |
Original release | 28 August 2000 (2000-08-28) – 6 March 2005 (2005-03-06) |
The music in the series was composed by Sheridan Tongue and Tony Hadley, and had the song "After All this Time" as its opening and closing credits in series 2 and 3.
The first series starred Pauline Quirke as Faith Addis, a teacher, and Warren Clarke as her long-suffering husband Brian, as they encountered various misfortunes and difficulties in adjusting to their new rural lifestyle, which is not helped by their uncooperative children's attitude to moving to a new location. The series was generally light in tone, although took a tragic turn following Brian's death in a road accident in series three.
In 2003 the Addis family leave the farm for good. They are replaced by the Brewer family. Matt Brewer (Ian Kelsey) is Brian's cousin. He leaves the big city with his young new wife Frankie (Angela Griffin) and his three children from his first marriage to move to Devon to take over the farm.
Two years later the Brewer family moved back to the city and were replaced by Jackie (Denise Welch), Tony Murphy (Ricky Tomlinson), and their wayward daughter Emma (Zara Dawson), who owned the local pub. The 5th and final series was broadcast from 2 January 2005 to 6 March 2005.
The show was broadcast in an hour format, with each show averaging 48 minutes. The first series featured 6 episodes, the 2nd, 3rd & 4th series had 8 episodes, and the 5th and final series had 10 episodes. So far only series 1 has been released on DVD, by Acorn Media UK.