From Thursday June 7, the Durrell family will be settling in for several evenings on Arte, which is broadcasting the complete four seasons of The Durells: an English family in Corfu. This funny and tender family comedy is also available on the free Arte.tv streaming platform until September 30, 2024. The series follows the adventures of Louisa Durrell. Heavily in debt since the death of her husband, the latter decides to go into exile in Greece, on the island of Corfu, with her four children. Freed from the customs of England in the 1930s, this joyful tribe rubs shoulders with the rough but warm inhabitants of this island and rubs shoulders with incredible wildlife in this heavenly setting. Keeley Hawes (Louisa Durrell, seen among others in the Netflix thriller Bodyguard) and wife in the city of Matthew Macfadyen, Josh O’Connor, the actor who lent his features to Charles Spencer in seasons 3 and 4 of The CrownAléxis Georgoúlis (Spýros Hakaiópoulos), Callum Woodhouse (Leslie Durrell), Milo Parker (Gerald Durrell) and Daisy Waterstone (Margo Durrell) including in the cast of this fiction also available on the Arte.tv streaming platform until September 30, 2024 .
The Durells : Discover the true story of this amazing English family exiled to Greece
“Living in Corfu is like living a colourful and action-packed operetta.“. This quote from Gerald Durrell is taken from My family and other animalsone of the volumes of The Corfu Trilogy, a literary saga in which the writer recounts his youth. The ITV series is loosely adapted from these autobiographical novels. Louisa Durrell, her husband and their four children were born in India during the British Raj. In 1928, when her husband, the British engineer Mr Durrell, died, Louisa took her three youngest children, Leslie, Margo and Gerald, to England where they survived on her meager widow’s pension. The eldest son Lawrence had already been sent to a boarding school across the Channel to study. In 1935, Lawrence was living in Corfu with his first wife Nancy (Larry is single in the TV series). That year, Louisa and her children left to join him on the island.
The Durells : The Durrells’ Extraordinary Life in Corfu in the 1930s
In Corfu, Gerald, passionate about nature and wildlife conservation, began collecting wild animals at home, where he was schooled. The young boy also finds a friend and mentor in the Greek physician, scientist, poet and philosopher Theodore Stephanides. They explored the island together, accompanied by Theodore’s young daughter Alexia (who does not appear in the series). Although Larry and his wife initially lived with the whole family in their house in Kontokali, in 1936 the young couple moved to a small fishing village. Larry later became friends with the writer Henry Miller, who came to visit him in 1939. Larry’s first novel, Pied Piper of Lovers, was published in 1935. It was inspired by his childhood experience in British India, the loss of a parent, and his difficulties integrating when he was sent to school in England. In this novel he also evokes the discovery of sexuality and the love life of his character. This semi-autobiographical novel was disappointingly well received, receiving mixed reviews.
The Durells : What happened to the Durrells after the war?
The Durrells arrived in 1935 and remained in Corfu until 1939, when the outbreak of the Second World War forced most of the family to return to England. When war broke out, Louisa left the island with Gerry and Leslie. Larry and his wife remained in Greece and had to flee with their young daughter to Egypt after the country’s fall in June 1941. Larry became a diplomat and writer, married four times, and lived all over the world. His most famous work is The Alexandria Quartet, a series of novels set in Egypt. Like Gerald, he also wrote about his time in Corfu, with less success. He ended his life in Sommières, France, where he died in November 1990.
Margo also remained in Corfu, occupying a cottage with friends. She began a romance with an RAF pilot, moved with him to South Africa and married him in 1940. They stayed there for the duration of the war, then moved to Bournemouth, and had two children before divorcing.
Gerry became a popular naturalist, conservationist and author. Returning to England, he worked in an aquarium and pet shop and, although called up for military service in 1943, he was medically excused. After the war he took up a position as a keeper at Whipsnade Zoo and undertook numerous excursions around the world bringing exotic animals back to the UK. Gerry founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, which was run by his second wife, Lee McGeorge Durrell, after her death in 1995.
