Masterful "The Durrells" returns to Corfu for second season filmimg

November 9, 2016
Written by E.Tsiliopoulos

The cast of The Durrells is returning to Corfu to film the second series, immortalizing the adventures of an English family on the island, shortly before WW II. The series has already attracted a large following in the Uk, but also globally.

Keeley Hawes will star in six more episodes of the hit ITV drama, based on the young life of Gerald Durrell played by Milo Parker.

In the second season, Gerald lived in Corfu before moving to Jersey to set up Durrell Wildlife Park.

There's a new romance ahead for Larry, Leslie explores his entrepreneurial side and Gerald finds an otter close to their home.

The Durrells lived on the island from 1935-39, as immortalised by Gerald Durrell in My Family and other Animals, and in the more literary works of his elder brother Lawrence.

Gerald, at 10, was the youngest when the family arrived in Corfu. With brothers Leslie and Lawrence - or Larry, as Gerald called him - sister Margo and their widowed mother, the Durrells lived a comically adventurous life in what was then an unspoiled backwater.

People in Corfu still remember them. Spiros Halikiopoulos, for example, the grandson of "Spiros Americanos", the taxi driver who became the Durrells' guide and mentor, grew up listening to tales of his grandfather's larger-than-life exploits, and of his devotion to the English family.

The Durrells were rich by Corfu standards, and always generous. The peasant children who came to the house returned home laden with gifts of food and sweets. To the locals, the English family were "gold from Heaven".

For Gerald, Corfu's mountainous interior was a giant playground in which he was free to roam.

The north-east, now home to most of Corfu's upmarket holiday villas, is where Lawrence Durrell and his wife Nancy chose to live (although Gerald, with artistic licence, has his brother sharing the family home). Larry was a colourful and controversial character (one of his pet theories was that Shakespeare set The Tempest in Corfu, the Bard's mythical "Sycorax" being a loose anagram of the ancient name for the island, Kerkyra).

Lawrence and Nancy were freethinkers whose uninhibited lifestyle would have been impossible in 1930s England. In Corfu the couple thrived. Visiting writers, such as Henry Miller, would take up residence in their home at Kalami, a former fisherman's cottage called the White House.

Christopher Hall talks about filming the PBS Masterpiece Series, "The
Durrells" in Corfu, Greece on New Greek TV's "In the Spotlight" with Yanna Darilis.