Airdate: Hotel Portofino

Six-part UK period drama series Hotel Portofino, set on the Italian Riviera, is coming to FOX Showcase in February.

The cast includes Natascha McElhone, Mark Umbers, Anna Chancellor and Aussie Claude Scott-Mitchell.

Additional cast  include Daniele Pecci, Lorenzo Richelmy, Roberto Albani and Rocco Fasano.

The series is created and written by Matt Baker (Before We Die), directed by Adam Wimpenny (Blackwood), and was filmed on location in Portofino, Italy and along the Croatian coastline.

An intriguing family drama set in the roaring 1920s, Natascha McElhone (Californication) stars as Bella Ainsworth, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist who has moved to Italy to set up a quintessentially British hotel in the breathtakingly beautiful town of Portofino.

Hotel Portofino captures the long-established literary tradition of comic and idiosyncratic British ‘innocents abroad’, but also reveals more serious storylines, set against the historical backdrop of the rise of Fascism in Mussolini’s Italy. Embracing themes of sexual and social liberation, the series delivers a rich cocktail of subplots in a breathtaking Italian setting.

Mark Umbers (Home Fires) plays Bella Ainsworth’s charming but dangerous aristocratic husband, Cecil, and Anna Chancellor (Four Weddings and a Funeral) plays the hotel’s most influential but hard-to-please guest, Lady Latchmere.

The series also features rising star, Australia’s own Claude Scott-Mitchell (The Dry) in the role of Rose Drummond-Ward, a newly arrived guest at the hotel.

Double episode Tuesday, February 8 at 8.30pm on FOX Showcase.