The Durrells’ Corfu – popular TV show revives Greek island’s picturesque past

Travel-weary but effortlessly chic, Mrs Durrell strides purposefully through customs in Corfu, dragging two large suitcases behind her. A taxi driver awaits her and her children holding up a sign that reads: “The Durrell Family.”

“Mrs Durrell. Welcome home,” shouts someone from the huddle waiting in the arrivals area.

“Why, thank you,” she replies with a smile and a gracious bow, before she sashays out into the balmy evening air.

It could be a scene from the sleepy port of the 1930s, when the literary English family lived on the Greek island for four years before the outbreak of war, an adventure later immortalised in a 1956 book by Louisa Durrell’s youngest son, Gerald: My Family and Other Animals. But this is late summer 2018 – and the modern-day Mrs Durrell is 42-year-old actress Keeley Hawes, who has brought the family back to life for a new generation of followers in hit television series The Durrells.

Rather than by boat, Hawes has arrived in Corfu on a flight with budget carrier easyJet from London’s Gatwick airport to spend a fortnight basking in the Ionian sunshine with her real family before she starts filming the fourth and final series of the gentle drama.