Lookout Point has announced that production on the upcoming second season of HBO and BBC’s period drama series Gentleman Jack has finally started in Yorkshire, England despite the country’s ongoing lockdown. The new season will also feature the addition of Joanna Scanlan, who is set to portray the role of Anne Lister’s former lover Isabella ‘Tib’ Norcliffe.
“I’ve been in a little bit of heaven once again spending so much time deep in Anne’s diaries as I’ve written the scripts, and can’t wait to see the fabulous, joyous magic and detail that Suranne and Sophie will bring to it all,” writer-executive producer Sally Wainwright said in a statement (via Deadline).
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Set in 1832 Halifax, West Yorkshire amidst the industrial revolution, Gentlemen Jack follows landowner Anne Lister as she’s determined to transform the fate of her faded ancestral home, Shibden Hall, by reopening the coal mines and marrying well — but has no intention of marrying a man. The story examines Lister’s relationships with her family, servants, tenants and industrial rivals and, most importantly, would-be wife. Based in historical fact, the real-life Anne Lister’s story was recorded in the four million words of her diaries, and the most intimate details of her life, once hidden in a secret code, have been decoded and revealed for the series.
The series stars Suranne Jones (Coronation Street) as Anne Lister, Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders), Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones), Timothy West (Bleak House), and Gemma Jones (Bridget Jones’s Diary).
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Gentlemen Jack is directed by Wainwright, Sarah Harding (Vikings) and Jennifer Perrott (Doctor Who) and produced by Lookout Point for HBO and BBC One. Executive producers include Wainwright, Faith Penhale and Laura Lankester for Lookout Point and Ben Irving for BBC One. Phil Collinson also produces.