The supportive good guys, Sophia Myles as Lady Katherine, the posh lady with dubious moral character according to the councillor.
Hayley Carmichael as Camilla Radler the shopkeeper as his “accomplice” and Jason Watkins as the councillor doing everything in his power to stop the Mottersheads get their zoo. Heroes can only be such, if they have great adversaries to deal with and Stephen Campbell-Moore was superb as the manipulative Reverend. Praise to the actors playing the “villains of the piece”.
Honor was totally believable and put in a winning performance as the little girl who loved animals and whose enthusiasm and love for her Dad drove him on. Special mention to young actress Honor Kneafsey as June, George and Lizzie’s youngest daughter, who narrates some of the story and on whose book the drama is based. Lee Ingleby as George, Liz White as his wife Lizzie, Anne Reid as his mother Lucy, Peter Wight as father Albert, Amelia Clarkson as teenage daughter Muriel “Mew”, and Ralf Little as Lizzie’s brother. The cast playing the Mottersheads have been exemplary. Obviously Chester Zoo is successful and still thrives today, so the “will they succeed” storyline was never in any doubt, So it was down to the writer and actors to make the audience identify with the Mottersheads and make them believe that it was indeed a wonderful but virtually impossible dream. Whoever commissioned this needs a massive pat on the back, because it has been a joy from start to finish, fro m the opening scene of George Mottershead and young June going to the circus right though to the closing shot (above) of the awestruck, smiling faces of June and George looking into the van containing a roaring big cat (the reflection of the animal can just be seen in the van’s window).
I’m sure that no-one had thought about how Chester Zoo came into being, or if they had, that it would make one of the most endearing and compelling pieces of drama for many years, but that is what it has proved to be. A week ago we said goodbye to the Mottershead family (above) in Our Zoo, but not permanently I hope.
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