Set in the 1850s. The misanthropic Mallen clan gives new meaning to the term “bad blood.” Patriarch Thomas, squire of High Banks Hall in the wilds of Northumberland, passes his poisonous legacy on to subsequent generations, whose avarice, lust deception and betrayal know no bounds. Storyteller extraordinaire Catherine Cookson is at the top of her game in this scintillating period piece about family values run amok. The Mallens would be disastrous neighbors, but their wily was make for superb viewing.
Catherine Cookson, one of the world’s best-loved and most prolific authors, created this passionate saga about an ambitious, scandal-ridden dynasty in nineteenth-century England. Nothing good ever came of a Mallen. It is said that they’re cursed and seldom reach old age or die in bed… and flamboyant, ruthless Thomas Mallen, current squire of High Banks Hall, is living up to that reputation. Brutal and ambitious, he is feared in the wild Northumberland country where he resides — along with the illegitimate children he has fathered, each of whom possesses a distinctive flash of white hair known as the Mallen Streak. The squire’s taste for women, hunting and high living ultimately drives him and his family into financial ruin, Forced to live in a tiny cottage under severely reduced circumstances, he sinks into a violent, alcoholic haze and in one night, dooms his family forever. The rest of the Mallen clan each plots to reclaim their former positions of wealth and power, resulting in murder, rape, deceit, suicide, forbidden love and madness. The Mallen: play a savage game of scandal, blind passion and betrayal that will touch three generations – and will only end in one final epic tragedy.
13 episodes in The Mallen Streak, The Mallen Girls, The Mallen Secret, and The Mallen Curse.
Starring Caroline Blakiston, Mary Healey, Gillian Lewis, Matthew Long, John Duttine.