# Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1990)

> A young girl raised in a fervent Pentecostal household discovers the wider world and her own identity when she is sent to school.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/1569

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 3
- Episode runtime: 55 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama
- Network: BBC Two
- Cast: Charlotte Coleman, Geraldine McEwan, Emily Aston, Kenneth Cranham, Elizabeth Spriggs, Cathryn Bradshaw, Celia Imrie, Freda Dowie
- TMDB rating: 7.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098032/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: intimate, melancholic, wry, tender, defiant

## What critics say

Critics broadly received the adaptation positively for its emotional honesty and the performances at its center.

## Synopsis

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1990) is a British miniseries adapted from Jeanette Winterson's novel, produced for BBC Two and written in three 55-minute episodes. Charlotte Coleman plays Jess, an adopted girl raised in a fervent Pentecostal household in a northern English town, whose devoted mother is played by Geraldine McEwan. When Jess is removed from that rigid home and sent to school, her bright certainty collides with a larger world that does not share her faith or her emerging sense of self. Kenneth Cranham appears as the zealous Pastor Finch, a figure of church authority whose doctrine shapes every corner of the family's life. The engine of the story is a young girl's struggle to hold onto belief while discovering who she truly is, with each episode moving between childhood memory and the present. Told in a retrospective, lyrical manner, the miniseries blends sharp comedy with aching loneliness and quiet defiance. Its 1970s English setting, with its chapel halls, school corridors and cramped domestic interiors, gives the drama a tangible working-class texture. Fans of Heartstopper and Brideshead Revisited will find resonance in its portrait of faith, first love and the cost of belonging. A tender, bittersweet piece of British television drama, it rewards viewers who enjoy intimate coming of age stories.

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