Masterpiece Theater’s New Saga, Indian Summers: The Imperial Game Was Up

Editor’s Note: You may remember Julie Walters first in her title role,  Educating Rita (1983), transferred to the big screen opposite Michael Caine as her Henry Higgins-like college professor, collecting a Golden Globe Award and Oscar nomination.

 Julie Walters (Harry Potter, The Hollow Crown), Henry Lloyd-Hughes (The Inbetweeners, Harry Potter, Madame Bovary), Jemima West (The Borgias, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones), Nikesh Patel (Bedlam, Honour), Roshan Seth (A Passage to India, Ghandi) and Lillete Dubey (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Monsoon Wedding) will star in Masterpiece Theater’s ten-part epic drama Indian Summers. 

Also joining the cast are Alexander Cobb (Mr. Selfridge, Call the Midwife), Craig Parkinson (Line of Duty, Misfits), Fiona Glascott (Episodes), Amber Rose Revah (What Remains), Aysha Kala (Shameless), Olivia Grant (Endeavour) and Edward Hogg (The Borgias). 

Set against the sweeping grandeur of the Himalayas and tea plantations of Northern India, the drama tells the rich and explosive story of the decline of the British Empire and the birth of modern India, from both sides of the experience. But at the heart of the story lie the implications and ramifications of the tangled web of passions, rivalries and clashes that define the lives of those brought together in this summer which will change everything. 

It’s the summer of 1932. India dreams of Independence, but the British are clinging to power. In the foothills of the Himalayas stands Simla, a little England where every summer the British power-brokers of this nation are posted to govern during the summer months. 

Ralph Whelan (Lloyd-Hughes), coolly ambitious, a coming man and tipped for promotion, is Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India. His sister, Alice (West), returns to Simla alone with her child and finds herself drawn to Aafrin (Patel), a Junior Clerk in the Viceroy’s office and son to Roshana (Dubey) and Darius (Seth), a gentle man and veteran of The Great War. Aafrin is brother to Sooni (Kala), severe and beautiful, and his spoilt younger sister Shamshad. 

At the heart of Simla’s society is Cynthia (Walters), widowed doyenne of the Royal Club who is as at home in the tack room as she is the ballroom. A force to be reckoned with, her influence spreads throughout the community. 

The cast of characters also includes Douglas (Parkinson), who runs a missionary school, his wife Sarah (Glascott) who yearns for the comforts of home, Ian McLeod (Cobb), the young and naïve Scottish tea plantation heir, and the mysterious Anglo-Indian woman Leena (Revah). 

As Indian Summers begins, the stories of promises, secrets, politics, power, sex and love play out as the British Raj begins to falter and a nation opens its eyes to the possibilities of freedom. Indian Summers airs in nine sweeping episodes, and premieres on Sunday, September 27, 2015 at 9/8c on Masterpiece on PBS. Check your local listings.

Indian Summers is the first Channel 4 commission from New Pictures. It is a coproduction with Masterpiece on PBS in the US. It is created and written by Paul Rutman (Vera). It will be directed by Anand Tucker (Red Riding) and produced by Dan McCulloch (Endeavour). Executive Producers are Charlie Pattinson (Shameless,Skins, Elizabeth I), Elaine Pyke (Mad Dogs, Strike Back) and Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Cranford), and Rebecca Eaton for Masterpiece on PBS (broadcaster of Sherlock, Downton Abbey). Indira Varma is Co-Executive Producer. Commissioned by Piers Wenger and Beth Willis for Channel 4, Indian Summers will be distributed internationally by All3M International.

 Spotlight: 6 Things You Need to Know About Julie Walters

Julie Walters has danced on tables with Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, battled Death Eaters in Harry Potter, and bared all alongside Helen Mirren in Calendar Girls. Now, find out all about Julie Walters as the British star returns to MASTERPIECE in Indian Summers as Cynthia Coffin, Machiavellian doyenne of the Simla Club!

1.   Julie Walters, like Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey), Judi Dench (Cranford), and Helen Mirren (Prime Suspect), is heralded as a British national treasure. But unlike these Masterpiece alumnae, she hasn’t yet been named a “Dame” — despite a decade-long fan campaign that reached all the way to Parliament! Why? The actress, with her working-class roots, jokingly posits that she’s “not posh enough.”