Evaluate: Pitch-perfect Renegade Nell is a gem of a chain you received’t wish to leave out

Award-winning British TV author Sally Wainwright is perfect recognized for the dramatic sequence Happy Valley (2014–2023) and Gentleman Jack (2019–2022), the latter produced collectively through BBC and HBO. Wainwright partnered with Disney+ for her newest sequence, the resolutely PG-13 Renegade Nell, which is a unique beast altogether: a just right outdated, swashbuckling comedian journey with a supernatural twist, that includes a sassy cross-dressing heroine pressured to show to freeway theft to continue to exist.

(Some spoilers under, however no primary finds.)

Set in 1705 throughout the reign of Queen Anne (Jodi Might, Gentleman Jack), the sequence stars Louisa Harland (Derry Girls) as Nell Jackson. Nell is a headstrong younger girl with tomboy aptitude and a style for journey who returns house to her village of Tottenham after operating off 5 years ahead of to marry one Captain Jackson in opposition to her father’s needs. She’s now widowed and possessed of occasional supernatural talents every time anyone threatens her, courtesy of a fairy sprite named Billy Blind (Nick Mohammed, aka Nathan from Ted Lasso), who has been tasked to give protection to Nell. Nell’s circle of relatives idea she’d been killed at the battlefield along her husband, so her homecoming is a bit of of a surprise.

Alas, Nell quickly runs afoul of 1 Thomas Blancheford (Jake Dunn), the louche, drunken offspring of town’s landlord, Lord Blancheford (Pip Torrens, Preacher). Let’s simply say issues escalate, and Nell quickly unearths herself at the run and framed for homicide, in conjunction with her two sisters, Roxy (Bo Bragason) and George (Florence Willing), and the Blanchefords’ former groomsman, Rasselas (Enyi Okoronkwo, The Lazarus Undertaking). The crowd will get additional the aid of a captivating aristocratic dandy/secret highwayman named Charles Devereaux (Frank Dillane, The Essex Serpent).

Nell simply needs to evade seize lengthy sufficient to search out a good Justice of the Peace to transparent her title. Within the procedure, she unearths herself scuffling with the ambitious black magic of the Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester, Euphoria) and his acolyte, Thomas’ sister, Woman Sofia (Alice Kremelberg, The Sinner), and stumbles upon a sinister plot to dethrone the queen.

The writing, pacing, and manufacturing values are top-notch, and the solid is terrific around the board. Lester brings a ruthless authority to Poynton’s spooky supernatural machinations, whilst Kremelberg is all seething sour resentment and steely get to the bottom of as Woman Sofia, a super, bold noblewoman (additionally widowed) who’s way more certified to run the circle of relatives property than her nugatory brother, but prohibited from inheriting through the rules of the time. Dillane’s Devereaux supplies a lot of the witty repartee and comedian aid, as does Joely Richardson’s (The Sandman) newspaper rich person, Woman Eularia Moggerhanger. And Ashna Rabheru (Red Rose) is pleasant as a spoiled younger aristocrat, Polly Honeycombe, with a full of life romantic creativeness who longs for one thing extra in existence than an organized marriage.

However it is Harland’s sensational portrayal of Nell that anchors all of it. It is a function that calls for her to be a tricky rebellious tomboy in a single scene and game a complicated accessory and fancy get dressed in some other; to stability motion comedy with moments of authentic worry and heartbreaking tragedy. Additionally it is a extremely bodily function: Harland underwent a number of months of stunt coaching previous to filming. She does all of it with refreshingly unpretentious aplomb.

Renegade Nell assists in keeping the motion flowing and properly by no means takes itself too significantly. Positive, there’s injustice, elegance battle, and robust clever girls chafing throughout the strict confines of conventional binary gender roles—and Polly Honeycombe indubitably qualifies as bicurious. However Wainwright by no means we could the tale get slowed down in heavy-handed symbolism or didacticism. Even Nell’s cross-dressing is treated with the lightest contact. Requested to touch upon her persona’s gender politics, Harland told the Guardian that there used to be no ulterior cause or schedule: “Why does she get dressed as a person? To move as a person.” Easy as that.

Do we see extra of feisty Nell and her delightfully eccentric compatriots? That is as much as Disney. There are many questions left unanswered and indubitably extra tales to inform, each previous and provide. Sequence director Ben Taylor told Radio Times simply after the premiere {that a} 2nd season used to be lately being written and that it will most likely contain some roughly time bounce (for the reason that one of the most more youthful actors will visibly age), selecting up with the more than a few surviving characters from the place they left off within the first season. However Disney has but to substantiate this. Here is hoping this sequence unearths the wider target market it so richly merits. We are rooting for you, Nelly… err, Nell.

Renegade Nell is now streaming on Disney+.