The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is based on the novel of the same name, but writer, showrunner and executive producer Sarah Lambert has explained how the series takes a different direction from the book.
During an interview with Chattr before the premiere on August 4, Lambert said that the 2018 novel by Australian author Holly Rigland initially “struck” her, but revealed that the TV series isn’t simply a retelling of it.
“When I read the opening lines of it, and this girl sort of sitting at the end of this dusty road imagining setting her father on fire, not because she’s an evil person, but because she just wants things to change,” she said.
“She just wants it to be different… she wants the worst of him to be burned away and she’s looking at all these images of Phoenix’s and she wants that.
“What really struck me was how when I read the novel — I mean the novel is very different to where we ended up, like the structure of it is completely different — we leaned into it, but I really wanted to hold on to what I think Holly did so brilliantly. I loved Alice. I related to her.”
How Sarah Lambert used her personal experience as inspiration
Lambert said that she related to the story of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart on a personal level, and reflected on family trauma she experienced as a child. She explained that she was raised by her mother on her own after she left Lambert’s abusive father.
“There were lots of things in my own life that I related to,” she said. “And then how you can relive it in your adult life… My mum ended up working for DOCS later on in life, and she worked with women’s refuges and children’s programmes. So, she was always I knew everything there was to know about this issue, but you can still go on, and relive that trauma. So there were things [in the story] that I just felt like, this is my story as much as it is of so many other women that I know.”
Stream the Lost Flowers of Alice Hart on Prime Video from August 4.
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