The Luminaries is airing on BBC One and online – who’s on the cast and how can you watch it online?
The Luminaries is an epic adventure mystery based on the Man Booker prize-winning novel of the same name by Eleanor Catton.
Set on the wild West coast of New Zealand’s South Island at the height of the 1860s gold rush, The Luminaries tells an intricately woven, suspenseful tale of love, murder, magic, and revenge.
The Luminaries has six episodes and currently airs on TV weekly at 9PM on Sunday nights on BBC One. The sixth and final episode airs on Sunday, July 19.
Alternatively, the full series is already available to watch online in the UK via BBC iPlayer here.
The Luminaries cast
The full cast of The Luminaries on BBC One features:
Eva Green as Lydia Wells
Eve Hewson as Anna Wetherell
Himesh Patel as Emery Staines
Ewen Leslie as Crosbie Wells
Marton Csokas as Francis Carver
Benedict Hardie as Alistair Lauderback
Erik Thomson as Dick Mannering
Richard Te Are as Te Rau Tauwhare
Callan Mulvey as George Shepard
Kieran Charnock as Edgar Clinch
Paolo Rotondo as Aubert Gascoigne
Yoson An as Sook Yongsheng
Matt Whelan as Cowell Devlin
Joel Tobeck as Benjamin Lowenthal
Matt Sunderland as Joseph Prichard
Byron Coll as Charlie Frost
Erroll Shand as Harald Nilssen
Gary Young as Quee Long
Mark Mitchinson as Thomas Balfour
Michael Sheasby as Walter Moody
The Luminaries spoilers
The story begins in 1865. Anna Wetherell (Eve Hewson) has travelled to New Zealand to forge a new life. On the last day of her voyage, a romantic first encounter with the radiant Emery Staines (Himesh Patel) fills her with great expectations for what lies ahead. But the scheming fortune-teller Lydia Wells (Eva Green) has other ideas for Anna, and lays a trap to ensure that the planned rendezvous between the young lovers never takes place.
Deceived, swindled, and betrayed, Anna’s fortunes begin to fall. She is drawn into an elaborate plot of blackmail, involving opium, gold, shipwreck, fraud, and false identity, which ultimately finds her framed for murder and fighting for her life.
But the bond between these star-crossed lovers is more than mere affinity. Anna and Emery are what is known as ‘astral twins’: they were born at the very same instant, and under the very same sky, which means that they share a single destiny.
When Emery vanishes without a trace, leaving Anna without an alibi for a murder she did not commit, the noose of the plot begins to tighten around her. Faced with the impossible, she must ask: do we make our fortunes, or does fortune make us?
More on: BBC One
