PERIOD SET SERIES SATURDAY: NEW PHOTOS FROM 'HOWARDS END' SERIES WITH MATTHEW MCFADYEN, HAYLEY ATWELL, 'PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK' WITH NATALIE DORMER

With the news from the world of period set series that Hulu has ordered the second season of Harlots and that TNT is probably going to

Matthew Macfadyen plays a conservative businessman

cancel their Will series, there's also something new from Starz: they've released new photos from next year's mini series HOWARDS END an adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel.

The series is based on E.M. Forsters' classic novel

MATTHEW MACFADYEN AND HAYLEY ATWELL LEAD THE CAST   
A coproduction between BBC and Starz it will tell the story of two couples caught in a swirling landscape of social and class divisions in turn of the century England! The four part series focuses on Margaret

The series will air next year both on BBC and Starz

Schlegel (Hayley Atwell), an idealistic, woman who is courted by the older Henry Wilcox (Matthew Macfadyen), a conservative businessman, after his wife Ruth Wilcox (Julia Ormond) dies

Joseph Quinn, Tracey Ulman and Alex Lawther in their costumes

unexpectedly. Meanwhile, Margaret’s passionate and capricious younger sister Helen Schlegel (Philippa Coulthard) takes up the cause of Leonard Bast (Joseph Quinn), a young bank clerk who falls on hard times at work and at home with his partner Jacky (Rosalind

Hayley Atwell plays Margaret Schlegel

Eleazar). In the absence of their parents, who have died, the sisters’ loving but interfering Aunt Juley (Tracey Ullman) tries to keep the young ladies and their brother Tibby (Alex Lawther) on the straight and narrow.

Amazon has, meanwhile, picked up another period set series coming from Australia PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK with Natalie Dormer as the lead star.  Based on a Joan Lindsay’s classic novel, the six part

Natalie Dormer leads the cast of the new period set series

series sees her playing English headmistress Mrs Hester Appleyard, a woman whose dead husband instructs her daily life and whose peculiarities are surely hiding dark skeletons! PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK chronicles the mysterious disappearances of three schoolgirls

The series will first air Down Under on Foxtel before moving to Amazon

and one teacher on Valentine’s Day 1900. The complex, interwoven narrative follows the subsequent investigation and the event’s far reaching impact on the students, families and staff of Appleyard College, and on the nearby township.