California Avenue is a new show from Hugo Brick, the mind behind some of modern television’s most memorable dramas, including The English with Emily Blunt, The Honorable Woman with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Black Earth Rising with Michaela Coel.
Unsurprisingly, “California Avenue” features a similarly star-studded cast, including Bill Nighy (“Love Actually”), Helena Bonham Carter (“Fight Club”), Erin Doherty (“Adolescence”) and Tom Burke (currently filming Alex Garland’s “Elden Ring”).
The series, created for the BBC by Brick’s production company Eight Lukes and Drama Republic, is set in a British trailer home park in the summer of 1975, when Doherty’s Lela returns home for the first time in a long while with her 11-year-old daughter. It was inspired, in part, by Brick’s own experiences living with his beloved grandparents in a mobile home community.
“Set in the idyllic English summer of 1975, with a stunning period soundtrack, this is a warm and witty story about a family on the run from their past and who find themselves lost in a community of outsiders,” Brick told Variety. “Whether these people live in trailer homes, caravans, or RVs, their (in)position as outcasts and sociopaths is universal. But sometimes, as in ‘May’s Beloved’ and ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ the people who have nothing have the most to give.”
The series will air on the BBC in the UK, but Mediawan Rights and Entourage Media are distributing the six-episode drama internationally.
Following a well-received first episode preview at last month’s Cannes series, show producer and Drama Republic co-founder Greg Brennman sat down with Variety to talk about how California Avenue got off the ground and whether it could return after the first season.
Tom Burke and Erin Doherty in “California Avenue” (Courtesy of Media One)
What is the origin of “California Avenue”?
The show started being developed with the BBC a few years ago and I remember pitching it to[former head of content at the BBC]Charlotte Moore. Moore loved the idea of a community of people living in a trailer home environment in the mid-’70s and escaping the world in some way.
This is a love letter to 1970s television. Because (as a child, Brick) spent a lot of time in the caravan and watched a lot of television with two people he really admired, especially his grandfather (represented to some degree, but not entirely, by Bill Nighy’s character).
And I think for him it was kind of a window into the entertainment industry that would sit with him and blossom years and years later.
What is the show about?
The story begins with Erin’s character Lela running away from the mansion she lives in with her rather abusive husband. You can just hear him yelling at her off-camera. She runs away with her 11-year-old daughter, travels through the night, and shows up at a mobile home community in the middle of the English countryside. And then you find out that you’re actually coming home. She runs away to live with the man in the mansion, has a child with him, and returns to the house where Bill and Helena’s characters, Papa and Mama, live, and introduces her daughter, her granddaughter, to them for the first time.
In other words, this is the story of a broken family being reunited and healing the wounds of her and Erin’s character’s departure, and where she meets Tom Burke’s character. He is also there for his own reasons to escape some events in life and they fall in love. And of course, it’s a love story of Erin reuniting with her mom and dad, and it’s also really a love story of Helena and Bill and their (the characters’) lasting relationship. And for an 11-year-old kid, who I think is about the same age as Hugo was in 1975, being with this family and enjoying the warmth of this community, even though it’s a bunch of sociopaths.
How did you assemble such an impressive cast?
Helena and Bill came very early. They were completely fascinated by this material. I think one of the benefits of working with Hugo is that he attracts a lot of top talent because he writes shows like no one else, when you think about Maggie, Emily Blunt, Michaela. I think when actors of that caliber read these scripts, as they have done in the past on other shows, they probably find a level of world and skill and character insight that they don’t necessarily get in other work.
To be honest, there are a lot of genre shows. Dead bodies and high speed car chases, it’s out of this world. This is a world of great love, great humor, and great emotional journeys for all four characters. I think this is a testament not only to their loyalty, but also to the script that they stuck to it so faithfully.
Why do you think everyone signed up for it?
Well, they’re not doing it for the money! If we remove that, what is left? The experience of collaborating with the rest of the cast, the script and Hugo Brick to read something unusual, unique and special. Isn’t that all you could hope for when it comes to achieving big goals with modest resources?
When creating a show set in a specific time and place, do you need to think about how the show will spread overseas?
That’s difficult. I mean, I produced the movie Billy Elliot many years ago, and I was able to ask all of those questions on that project. I think the answer is that you just have to do something that’s important to you, that has a universal feeling, that’s told with the best cast, the best director, the best script, the best design, and that it’s meaningful to a wide audience around the world. Obviously, in the case of “Billy Elliot,” we didn’t have any clues at the time, but then it chimed in and we realized who was no different than our parents, which of course is the case on this show. Who wouldn’t want a broken bone to heal? Who wouldn’t want to be more understanding of the fallibility of the people who raised you? Who doesn’t want to be in love? Therefore, all these things are universal.
Is there any chance that “California Avenue” will be revived as a series?
Could definitely come back. It’s not necessarily designed to come back, but ultimately it’s about a group of people who are in a better position at the end than they were at the beginning, so they all survive to tell the story.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
