The Orchid House is a four-part television serial that first aired on British television's Channel 4 from 21 February to 14 March 1991, directed by Horace Ové and produced by Malcolm Craddock. Its cast featured Diana Quick, Madge Sinclair, Nigel Terry, Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Buffery and Frances Barber, and was based on Phyllis Shand Allfrey's only novel of the same name (first published in 1953).
The film was shot in its entirety in Allfrey's homeland, the island of Dominica, over a period of 10 weeks. [1]
Onyekachi Wambu writes about The Orchid House: "Its focus on the declining power of the white plantocracy on the island of Dominica between the war years, handled through the prism of an intimate family drama, has great depth while remaining accessible." [2]
Edward Oliver LeBlanc was a Dominican politician who served as the chief minister from January 1961 to 1 March 1967 and as the first premier from 1 March 1967 to 27 July 1974. Born in Vieille Case, a village in the north of the island, LeBlanc attended the local school and studied agriculture at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad. He worked in the civil service and became a member of the Dominica Trade Union. An early member of the Dominica Labour Party (DLP), he served as a representative in the country's Legislative Council representing the constituency of Portsmouth between 1957 and 1958, and as a representative of Dominica in the Federal Parliament of the West Indies Federation upon its foundation in 1958. LeBlanc left the federation in 1960 to run for election to the national legislature.
Madge Dorita Sinclair CD was a Jamaican actress best known for her roles in Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975), Convoy (1978), Coming to America (1988), Trapper John, M.D. (1980–1986), and the ABC TV miniseries Roots (1977). Sinclair also voiced the character of Sarabi, Mufasa's mate and Simba's mother, in the Disney animated feature film The Lion King (1994). A five-time Emmy Award nominee, Sinclair won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series for her role as "Empress" Josephine in Gabriel's Fire in 1991.
The Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) is a conservative political party in Dominica. It shares much of the same socially and economically conservative principles as the Conservative Party in the UK. The party has been led by Bernard Hurtault since 2021.
The Dominica Labour Party is a centre-left social-democratic political party in Dominica.
Empire Road is a British television series, made by the BBC in 1978 and 1979. Written by Michael Abbensetts, the programme ran for two series.
Phyllis Byam Shand Allfrey was a West Indian writer, socialist activist, newspaper editor and politician of the island of Dominica in the Caribbean. She is best known for her first novel, The Orchid House (1953), based on her own early life, which in 1991 was turned into a Channel 4 television miniseries of the same name in the United Kingdom.
The Orchid House is a book published in 1953, and the only novel written by Dominican writer Phyllis Shand Allfrey. It is considered "a pioneering work of Caribbean literature". The Orchid House is a fictionalized account of Allfrey's early life, narrated by an old Black nurse Lally from Montserrat. It was turned into a highly acclaimed film for British television.
The Orchid House is the title of:
Lennox Honychurch is a Dominican historian and politician. He wrote 1975's The Dominica Story: A History of the Island, the 1980s textbook series The Caribbean People, and the 1991 travel book Dominica: Isle of Adventure. Also an artist and a curator, he was largely responsible for compiling the exhibit information for The Dominica Museum in Roseau. Honychurch is the grandson of writer and politician Elma Napier.
Emmanuel Christopher Loblack OBE was a Dominican trade unionist and politician.
Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. Dominica's closest neighbours are two constituent territories of the European Union, the overseas departments of France, Guadeloupe to the northwest and Martinique to the south-southeast. Dominica comprises a land area of 750 km2 (290 sq mi), and the highest point is Morne Diablotins, at 1,447 m (4,747 ft) in elevation. The population was 71,293 at the 2011 census.
As of 2013, people of solely European descent are a small minority in the Commonwealth of Dominica, comprising only 0.8% of the population.
Federal elections were held in the West Indies Federation for the first and only time on 25 March 1958. The result was a victory for the West Indies Federal Labour Party, which won 25 of the 45 seats in the House of Representatives.
Sir Henry Alfred Alford Nicholls was a physician, disease specialist, horticulturist, zoologist and legislator in, and publicist for Dominica for over 50 years. He published on a wide variety of topics and was awarded a knighthood for his services just before his death.
Polly Pattullo Hon. FRSL is a British author, journalist, editor and publisher, who co-founded in 1998 the independent publishing company Papillote Press, based in Dominica, and London, England. Her writing has appeared in such publications as The Guardian, The Observer, Caribbean Insight, and Caribbean Beat, and she is the author or editor of several books, among them Last Resorts: the Cost of Tourism in the Caribbean (1996) and Your Time is Done Now: Slavery, Resistance and Defeat: the Maroon Trials of Dominica 1813–14 (2015).
Woodford Hill is a village in Saint Andrew Parish in north-eastern Dominica. Woodford Hill was an estate extending from Eden River to L’anse Noire. An Amerindian village existed at the mouth of the Woodford Hill river about 1,400 years ago. The present day village of Woodford Hill is on the western boundary of the old estate. It is made up of various sections including Small Farm, Mount Sylvie, Falang, Larieu, Fond Cole, Joe Road, and Big Cedar. According to the 2011 census report, Woodford Hill had a population of 1,034.
Ada Quayle was the pseudonym of Kathleen Louise Woods, née Robinson. Woods was a Jamaican novelist, author of a historical novel, The Mistress (1957).
Nicholson Alexander Nathaniel Ducreay was a Dominican politician.