In January, word arrived that Ridley Scott was producing and developing a new TV drama for US network PBS set during the American Civil War and medical staff treating wounded warriors. Now we know the title – Mercy Street – and that the likes of Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Josh Radnor and Gary Cole will be among the cast.
Mercy Street focuses on two volunteer nurses whose political ideology falls on opposite sides of the conflict. New England abolitionist Mary Pinney (Winstead) works alongside Confederate supporter Emma Green (Hannah James) in the luxury hotel owned by the latter’s family that has since been converted into a Union Army hospital.
Radnor is aboard as Jebediah Foster, a civilian surgeon who grew up in a privileged Southern slave-owning household. The scripts will be drawn from memoirs and letters of real medical volunteers at Mansion House Hospital.
The main trio is bolstered by Cole, Peter Gerety, Norbert Leo Butz, Jack Falahee, AnnaSophia Robb, McKinley Belcher III, Shalita Grant, Cherry Jones and Donna Murphy, with PBS aiming to air the drama next year alongside the final run of Downton Abbey. Whether it makes it over to the UK has yet to be decided.