TEN POUND POMS - SUNDAY 9pm bbc. TV PACE. NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

In dreary postwar Manchester, Annie Roberts is at her wits end when husband Terry spends all his wages down the pub. Desperate for a better life for her children, Annie responds to an emigration advert that promises Brits a prosperous new life in Australia for a tenner. Expecting whitewashed houses and sun-soaked adventures, the Roberts family arrive in Sydney to find life down under isn't quite what they've been sold.

Ten Pound Poms is the new original drama series created by BAFTA-winning Danny Brocklehurst (Brassic, Ordinary Lies) produced by Eleven, the team behind the award-winning Sex Education. A co-production between BBC and Stan, the series will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and as a Stan Original Series in Australia.

The six-part series follows a group of Brits as they leave dreary post-war Britain in 1956 to embark on a life-altering adventure on the other side of the world.

For only a tenner, they have been promised a better house, better job prospects and a better quality of life by the sea in sun-soaked Australia.

But life down under isn’t exactly the idyllic dream the new arrivals have been promised. Struggling with their new identity as immigrants, we follow their triumphs and pitfalls as they adapt to a new life in a new country far from Britain and familiarity.

At the heart of the drama are Annie (Faye Marsay) and Terry Roberts (Warren Brown). They try to make the best of the situation for their family, but the poor living conditions at the hostel and local attitudes towards immigrants test them in ways they couldn’t have imagined.

They aren’t the only people at the hostel avoiding the truth. Kate (Michelle Keegan) is a young nurse who arrives without her fiancé and will do whatever it takes to try and rewrite her devastating past.

Bill (Leon Ford) has lost his family business back home and is so desperate to prove he’s living the Australian dream that he’ll stop at nothing in order to get a lifestyle he can’t sustain.

Teenager Stevie (Declan Coyle) comes from a troubled background and hopes to use this new adventure to escape his oppressive father.

Meanwhile Ron (Rob Collins), an indigenous Australian war veteran, struggles with feeling like an outsider in his own country.

Cast
Michelle Keegan - Kate Thorne
Faye Marsay - Annie Roberts
Warren Brown - Terry Roberts
Hattie Hook - Pattie Roberts
Finn Treacy - Peter Roberts
Stephen Curry - JJ Walker
David Field - Dean
Emma Hamilton - Sheila Anderson
Leon Ford - Bill Anderson
Berynn Schwerdt - Arty
Cheree Cassidy - Marlene
Rob Collins – Ron

Yes she drugged him as didn't actually want to go with him

He was livid when found out she went

Ten-pound poms: the ‘invisible migrants’ who made Australia their home | Australian immigration and asylum | The Guardian

Many single people used the 10-pound assisted passage as “a bit like having a two-year working holiday. A lot of young people just thought ‘This is a great chance to see the world.’”

It doesn't say only single men were allowed which begs the question why involve the 'fiance' at all. Maybe that was to placate her family.

I thought Kate's fiance didn't know she went to Australia as he was asking her mum where she was .

I wasn't keen on this in the beginning but it looks like it'll pick up .

I thought he knew she had gone to Australia (because they were meant to be going together) but she seemingly may have given him a sedative to ensure he slept through and missed getting on the boat) and he was asking her mum if he knew whereabout she was in Australia because he wants to track her down, possibly follow her out (in a controlling manner).

@HeartStarRose I probably wasn't paying enough attention !

Kate asked her mum on the phone to tell the fiancé she was in Perth, but she said she wouldn't lie for her. Presumably, he'll show up (I suppose ) just as she is reunited with her long lost child! Just a guess , not binge watching this one on I player

I watched it and enjoying it! I knew it happened back into he 50’s I think it was 🤔...the guy at work is a nasty piece of work. Looks like it was tough to fit in, the accommodation on the camps looked grim! I think the teenage daughter is pregnant she held her stomach when she fell at the football match ...

The teenage daughter looks nearly as old as her mum!

Hate to nitpick, but I’d love to know if historically you could have actually gone with a fiancé? I think it would have been married couples only (singles for workforce, families etc). But that’s just one of the many things I questioned after ep1. I have some family relatives there who went in the 80s, they are absolutely loaded from land purchases in Western Australia, it really worked out well for so many.

Like a PP said, I think I might have preferred a documentary about it and I’m enjoying reading the MN comments more than the actual drama. A shame it was just a bit meh and silly in parts.

I’d love to know if historically you could have actually gone with a fiancé?
I'd like to know this as well

I assumed it was an injury from the war.

I think it would have been more acceptable to go as a single person and I'm guessing she would be put up in a women's hostel not a hut of her own.

I was thinking polio. My grandad had a contraption like that on his leg.

War

Polio

Accident

Regards boss (sexy boss) leg

Sure it will be relevant to story as why else show if

I think in reality they would need to have married before going or gone as two singles. As she was a nurse she probably would have been accepted as a single woman whereas generally a single woman wouldn't be attractive to the Australian government.

They would have been allocated single persons quarters as unmarried, and I would have thought that would be a dormitory. It surprised me when she was given her own cabin.

Oh thanks
week late to the party and trying to work out where I had seen him . The nurses bf was on H&A too
i liked it , but was annoyed that they didn’t show anything about the journey.
my aunt and uncle were £10 poms they came home, then went back and are still there.

E2 tonight

As I'm away in sunny tenerife I can't watch it but I did download it before I left

But can't download /watch anything live now

So I will watch 2 sometime tonight and then join in

Watching it prob illegally

No one else watching Poms
Tonight ?

My parents looked into going in the mid 60s. I was quite small (7 I think) but must have read the forms they were sent. Only white people were allowed and my parents had to declare that none of us children had a disability. I can remember asking about that and my father said it was so you wouldn’t be a liability on their health service. How did I know how to argue against this at 7, maybe 8 at the most. I can remember saying none of it seemed fair.
Don’t get me started on when they gave up on Australia and decided we’d move to South Africa, though I was 10 by then.

It's very grim , not sure I will stick with it

I'm surprised Terry is handing himself in as Dean will go mad :( as well as being a nut case.
I hope the accountant is caught : poor Trevor
JJ is pretty street smart and on to them I think.
It's not hooking me in though and finding it a bit boring and going on my phone , always a sign I'm bored / disinterested.

Dean is def a bit of a nutter

That poor dog

He's has a young ish wife and was it 4 sons ?

Can't believe Terry has gone to the police

And ringing up to speak to the local via jj wasn't very clever

jj will work it out

Poor Trevor

So the little one is at an orphanage

And assume mum pretending to be ill to get her address /phone number - guessing to give to fiance

Tho he wasn't impressed she had a child

2nd episode a bit depressing apart from Annie getting a job and her and Trevor agreeing Dean's family was terrible.

Italian and German women didn't really bring anything to the story.

I didn't enjoy this episode so much. Too many coincidences i.e. Terry working with a relative of the boy who was killed and Robbie having been an orphan himself.

The scene in the shop struck me as odd too - where Annie had to fire an employee and then it turned out to be a test. If it was her first day, surely Annie would have been shown around the shop and introduced to all the staff etc. Also, why was she hired as a supervisor? It would have made more sense if she'd been hired as a sales assistant.

JJ is definitely suspicious but if he discovers the truth and tells on Bill then will Bill be sent home? In which case Sheila would surely go home with him. But JJ and Sheila are having a fling so that wouldn't be in JJ's own interests. Or would Bill just serve his prison sentence in an Australian jail?

I don’t think I will be sticking with this. Turned it off during the barbecue when he hit the dog. Hate animal cruelty and the awful racism. Prefer peoples real stories on this thread