Hunderby. Image shows from L to R: Dr Foggerty (Rufus Jones), Helene (Alexandra Roach), Hesther (Rosie Cavaliero), Pastor John (Reece Shearsmith), Dorothy (Julia Davis), Edmund (Alex Macqueen), Biddy Ritherfoot (Jane Stanness). Copyright: Baby Cow Productions
Hunderby

Hunderby

  • TV sitcom
  • Sky Atlantic
  • 2012 - 2015
  • 9 episodes (1 series)

Period comedy written by and starring Julia Davis. Set in the 1800s, it focuses on the dark goings on in a small English village. Also features Alexandra Roach, Alex Macqueen, Rufus Jones, Rosie Cavaliero, Alexander Armstrong and more.

  • JustWatch Streaming rank this week: 5,316

Episode menu

Hunderby Revisited, Episode 1

Over dinner, the vicar John announces that any homosexual men in the area are being identified and hanged, spelling disaster for the pastor.

Preview clips

Further details

Hunderby. Image shows from L to R: Dr Foggerty (Rufus Jones), Helene (Alexandra Roach). Copyright: Baby Cow Productions

BAFTA winner Julia Davis returns with the first of two hour-long episodes of her twisted period comedy.

Davis reprises her role as malevolent housekeeper Dorothy, who is still trying to scheme her way into the life of master of the house, pastor Edmund.

With Edmund's young wife Helene leaving him for Dr Foggarty, he will need to find a replacement, but he's deaf to Dorothy's advances, and it's not just because of her 'bold trouser mouth'...

Over dinner, local vicar John (Reece Shearsmith) announces that any homosexual men in the area are being identified and hanged, spelling disaster for the pastor.

Meanwhile, Foggarty's estranged wife Hester has a plot to meddle in his new relationship, and gets a boost she never would have expected.

Hunderby. Image shows from L to R: Dr Foggerty (Rufus Jones), Hesther (Rosie Cavaliero), Dorothy (Julia Davis), Edmund (Alex Macqueen), Biddy Ritherfoot (Jane Stanness), Pastor John (Reece Shearsmith), Helene (Alexandra Roach). Copyright: Baby Cow Productions
Hunderby. Image shows from L to R: Dr Foggerty (Rufus Jones), Helene (Alexandra Roach), Hesther (Rosie Cavaliero), Pastor John (Reece Shearsmith), Dorothy (Julia Davis), Edmund (Alex Macqueen), Biddy Ritherfoot (Jane Stanness). Copyright: Baby Cow Productions

Broadcast details

Date
Thursday 10th December 2015
Time
10pm
Channel
Sky Atlantic
Length
60 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Wednesday 16th December 2015 11:20pm Sky Atlantic
Sunday 17th April 2016 2:25am Sky Atlantic

Cast & crew

Cast
Julia Davis Dorothy
Alexandra Roach Helene
Alex Macqueen Edmund
Rufus Jones Dr Foggerty
Rosie Cavaliero Hesther
Alexander Armstrong Brother Joseph
Jane Stanness Biddy Ritherfoot
Reece Shearsmith Pastor John
Writing team
Julia Davis Writer
Barunka O'Shaughnessy Writer
Production team
Tony Dow Director
Ted Dowd Producer
Henry Normal Executive Producer
Lindsay Hughes Executive Producer
Lucy Lumsden Executive Producer
Julia Davis Executive Producer
Robin Peters Editor
David Ferris Production Designer

Video

Hunderby - 2015 Trailers

The award-winning comedy from Julia Davis returns with a two-part special.

Featuring: Julia Davis (Dorothy), Alexandra Roach (Helene), Alex Macqueen (Edmund), Rufus Jones (Dr Foggerty), Rosie Cavaliero (Hesther), Alexander Armstrong (Brother Joseph) & Reece Shearsmith (Pastor John).

Press

Hunderby review

Hunderby is the filthiest filth, but you can get away with a lot by being very good and very funny.

Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, 11th December 2015

Julia Davis's gothic spoof returns for a two-part special. This opening hour sees evil housekeeper Dorothy determined to disrupt Helene and Dr Foggerty's marriage, while keeping master Edmund incapacitated with laudanum. Though this series provides Davis with the perfect setting in which to cultivate the bizarre idioms and stomach-turning adjectives that peppered Nighty Night, without the latter's acute social observation, Hunderby's appeal seems limited to her grotesque linguistic invention - and rather repetitive for it.

Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian, 10th December 2015

Julia Davis's sitcom returns to Sky for a special two-part episode and picks up where Series 1 left off.

It's a black comedy, set in the 1830s, loosely based on du Maurier's Rebecca, and is spoken in mock-Victorian language which allows it to conceal dark, rude jokes under the pretty silken cloak of genteel words.

The main character is Helene who was washed ashore after a shipwreck off the coast of England. She married a nice local vicar and had to keep her dark past hidden from him, but his sinister housekeeper, Dorothy, was always suspicious of her.

At the end of the last series, Helene had found love with Dr Foggerty and finally told Hunderby she was leaving him. If he wants a new wife then creepy Dorothy is on hand and would be more than happy to comply, but Hunderby just won't take the hint despite her constant schemes to win his affection.

As Helene and Dr Foggerty try to love one another, his wife, Crippled Hesther, promises to get in the way.

Julie McDowall, The National (Scotland), 10th December 2015

Hunderby, review: 'cartoonishly grotesque'

Julia Davis's twisted period sitcom is a million miles from the primary-coloured slapstick of other mainstream comedies, says Charlotte Runcie.

Charlotte Runcie, The Telegraph, 10th December 2015

Hunderby returns

Sky have apparently not yet made a decision on whether Hunderby should return for another full series, but Dorothy's surely got enough evil in her to go around.

Steve Bennett, Chortle, 10th December 2015

The deliciousness of a bubbly milk, however bubbly, cannot match that of the script and performances in this subversion of period dramas, set on a country estate in 1831 and home to housekeeper Dorothy, who Norman Bates would admire.

Hunderby is a wolf in a stiff corset, its teeth exquisite blades of language which shred characters' dignity and rip into Sunday night bonnet dramas, writers Julia Davis and Barunka O'Shaughnessy crafting sentences which glory in lampooning the literature of that time. A delirious and hysterical work of Gothic imagination to rival Wednesday Addams' diary - I had tears running down both sets of cheeks.

The first of this two part special assembles the scheming of Dorothy, the doomed love affair of Dr Foggerty (Rufus Jones) and Helene (Alexandra Roach), the simpering Hester (Rosie Cavaliero, more on her later), and a violent monkey. A monkey, Rufus Jones tells me, that between takes would wear a smoking jacket and a fez. That's normal by this show's standards.

Toby Earle, Evening Standard, 10th December 2015

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