Meanwhile, the redoubtable Ken Stott takes a broadly written caricature of academic archaeologist Charles Phillips and keeps it just the right side of credible, personifying the snobby establishment who march in to take credit for Basil’s discoveries, looking down their noses at Brown whom they consider to be little more than a labourer – an earth mover. Ralph Fiennes plays Brown, a tough, self-reliant man of few words and an outdoor tan, who does a fair bit of pipe-filling, pipe-smoking and pipe-biting. Fiennes plays him as someone who knows his worth, and he insists on getting two pounds a week from Mrs Pretty for his work and for his lifetime’s knowledge. Mulligan is Edith Pretty: intelligent, beautiful, lonely and mysteriously moved by what Brown is uncovering and by Brown’s own quietly messianic sense of purpose. But then the grand folk from London arrive, intent on taking possession of their precious discovery: Ken Stott is on great form as the pompous British Museum archaeologist Charles Phillips, his face as fierce and red as a toby jug. But along with Phillips is the mousy scholar Stuart Piggott (Ben Chaplin), a dull fellow who is failing to satisfy his young wife Margaret (Lily James) emotionally. And she is attracted to Edith’s (fictional) cousin Rory (Johnny Flynn). As the end credits begin, text explains the fate of Edith and the recovered objects. Edith died in 1942. The treasure was hidden in the London Underground during the war and first exhibited—without any mention of Basil Brown—nine years after Edith's death. Only much later was Brown given full credit for his contribution and his name is now displayed permanently alongside Pretty's at the British Museum. Kermode, Mark (31 January 2021). "The Dig review – a quiet meeting of minds at Sutton Hoo". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 16 February 2021 . Retrieved 16 February 2021. North West Roasts Kim Kardashian's Ex-Boyfriend Pete Davidson: "You're Going To The Met Gala, Pete, Not The Gas Station"

Smith, Neil (29 January 2021). "Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan remake history in Netflix film The Dig". BBC News. Archived from the original on 29 January 2021 . Retrieved 30 January 2021. In the novel, Peggy tells how the English cellist Beatrice Harrison was recorded and broadcast during the 1920s and 1930s playing in her garden to the accompaniment of nightingales singing (pp. 171–2). Her account appears to be in homage to the poem "The Nightingale Broadcasts" by Robert Saxton, which won the Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry in 2001. Later, where Saxton has "a nightingale cadenza, which gargled and trilled from the oak leaves", Peggy's voice tells of their "long gurgling trills" (p. 196). This theme appears to draw on Harrison's autobiography, first published in 1985. Harrison appeared in the 1943 British film The Demi-Paradise, as herself, playing while nightingales sing during a BBC radio broadcast. [17] Adaptations [ edit ] Townsend, Emily (21 September 2018). "Nicole Kidman could star in new film about Sutton Hoo". East Anglian Daily Times. Archived from the original on 30 August 2019 . Retrieved 15 November 2019.

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The Dig starts, and ends, in mud. The book begins when Sutton Hoo landowner Edith Pretty hires Basil Brown, a self-taught local archaeologist, to excavate the burial mounds on the field by her house. Her husband, who had died suddenly in 1934, always felt there was something inside them: now, as the end of the world draws near, she wants to know if he was right. Brown slowly digs over the field, finding nothing. He almost gives up. Then, in a moment of revelation, he makes a discovery that will change his life - for better or worse.

Markham, Robert (2002). Sutton Hoo: through the rear view mirror, 1937–1942. Woodbridge: Sutton Hoo Society. ISBN 0954345304. How did Edith Pretty end up hiring archaeologist Basil Brown to explore the mounds on her property?R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (3 Vols in 4), (British Museum, London 1975, 1978, 1983) But the implications of this book go beyond that. John Preston writes, “It seemed an especially cruel sort of joke that we should be unearthing the remains of one civilization just as our own appeared to be on the brink of annihilation.” The endurance of humankind and the futility of our efforts to pose and posture underlie the action and call to mind Shelly’s famous Ozymandias poem: “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Things happen. They uncover items at the dig. The characters are momentarily pleased, then not. One of the maidservants disappears strangely. Why? We're never told. Mrs Pretty's son gets to know Brown, but then they don't interact any more. The finds are going to be sent to the British Museum as treasure trove, then the coroner's inquest finds they belong by rights to Mrs Pretty, who sends them to the British Museum anyway. When the war comes it's -- well, it's fine. No one seems to react to it with any kind of emotion. Everything's fine.

But actually, in that vulgar figurative sense, he pretty much does leave Mrs Pretty’s mounds alone. Her tentative offer of dinner is complicated by the fact that Basil is married to a woman called May, shrewdly played by Monica Dolan, and there is also a secret sadness and vulnerability in Edith’s own heart that would appear to preclude any such developments, though Mrs Pretty’s young son Robert (Archie Barnes) might well be seeing Basil as a father figure. R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Gollancz, London 1974). ISBN 0-575-01704-X Times Staff (19 November 2020). "Yes, Virginia, there are movies this holiday season. Here's where to find them". The Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 19 November 2020. Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Master Gardener’ on Hulu, Another Subtly Sinister Drama From Master Storyteller Paul SchraderPeggy Piggott found the first gold on 21 July, and as digging continued, more and more treasures came to the surface. Gold doesn't tarnish or corrode in the same way as the iron remains of the ship's bolts and other features; it came out of the ground looking as it does in the film. Brown wrote in his journal that "all the objects shone in the sunshine as on the day they were buried".

The author employs a degree of literary license so that the account in the book differs in various ways from the real events of the Sutton Hoo excavations. A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of the Establishment (2016; non-fiction, on the Jeremy Thorpe affair)

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Preston wisely gives almost equal weight to the human dramas unearthed by the dig as he does to the delicate brushings and occasional stunning finds. As ever, these are subtly played and slowly uncovered. Using underplayed comic contrast, he sets the gentlemanly world personified by Basil Brown against the forces of pompous professional egos and officialdom. Peggy Piggott's dawning awareness that her chaste marriage is built on shaky foundations, and her intimations of what might have been, provide a wash of muted poignancy. Johnny Flynn as Rory Lomax (Above): Edith's cousin, a photographer who forms a bond with Peggy. Johnny Flynn portrayed Christopher Giles in Clouds of Sils Maria and Pascal Renouf in Beast. He also starred as Young Albert Einstein in Genius and Mr. Knightly in the 2020 feature Emma. R. A. D. Markham, Sutton Hoo through the Rear-View Mirror (Sutton Hoo Society, Woodbridge 2002). ISBN 0-9543453-0-4