Teenager Penelope (Sophie Thompson, the younger sister of Emma and future star of the hits BBC TV show The Detectorists) lives in the twentieth century, but when she goes to live with her Aunt Tissie (Elizabeth Bradley) and Uncle Barnabas (Gerald James) at Thackers, a remote ancient Derbyshire farmhouse, she finds herself travelling back in time to the Elizabethan era.
There she joins the lives of the notorious Babington family and finds herself caught up in treason against Queen Elizabeth I by a Catholic faction supportive of Mary Queen of Scots (Heather Chasen), and plotting her rescue to restore her to the throne.
Most location shooting took place at the Groom family farm in Dethick, Derbyshire. This led to the farmer’s son Simon Groom becoming a long-running Blue Peterpresenter when he chanced a radio interview with producer Dorothea Brooking, leading him to audition for Biddy Baxter at the BBC.
Penelope Taberner Cameron
Sophie Thompson Uncle Barnabas
Gerald James Aunt Tissie/Dame Cicely Taberner
Elizabeth Bradley Tabitha
Sarah Benfield Francis Babington
Simon Gipps-Kent Mistress Babington
Mary Maude Jude
Louis Hammond Anthony Babington
Charles Rogers Mary Queen of Scots
Heather Chasen Arabella
Michele Copsey Tom Snowball
Michael Greatorex Seton
Gillian Maude Adam Deedick
Graham Rigby Dick Woodiwiss
Derrick Gilbert Chideock Tichbourne
Paul Geoffrey Father Ballard
Seymour Green Will Jessup
Anthony Lindford Monsieur Oudry
Gabor Vernon
Episodes
The Door | The Kitchen | The Locket | The Tunnel | The ribbon
Video
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There she joins the lives of the notorious Babington family and finds herself caught up in treason against Queen Elizabeth I by a Catholic faction supportive of Mary Queen of Scots (Heather Chasen), and plotting her rescue to restore her to the throne.
