--- title: "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" year: 1990 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/oranges-are-not-the-only-fruit" fi1m_id: "oranges-are-not-the-only-fruit" imdb_id: "tt0098032" tmdb_id: 1669 wikidata_id: "Q4315356" fi1m_score: 86 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-07T11:23:56.998242+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T11:23:57.559753+00:00" region: "KR" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1990) Created by Beeban Kidron · 55m · Drama ## Identity Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/oranges-are-not-the-only-fruit - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** oranges-are-not-the-only-fruit - **IMDb ID:** tt0098032 - **TMDB ID:** 1669 - **Wikidata ID:** Q4315356 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098032/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1669, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4315356 **Fi1m score: 86** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A mother who believes the world is Us and Heathens, and a daughter who quietly turns out to be a third thing > Jeanette Winterson’s adaptation of her own novel, directed by Beeban Kidron, is funny, cruel and over in under three hours. Geraldine McEwan and Charlotte Coleman are as good a mother and daughter as British television has put on screen; the production around them is plainer than they are. ## Synopsis Jess (Emily Aston as a child, Charlotte Coleman as a teenager) is raised in a Pentecostal household in a northern mill town by her adoptive Mother (Geraldine McEwan), who has decided she will be a missionary. The world, Mother teaches, divides into friends and enemies, and school is the Breeding Ground. Jess preaches and believes every word. Miss Jewsbury (Celia Imrie) takes a quiet interest in her. Old Elsie (Margery Withers) befriends her. Pastor Finch (Kenneth Cranham) comes to preach, and the chapel women, May (Elizabeth Spriggs) and Mrs Green (Freda Dowie) among them, keep watch. As she grows, Jess meets Melanie (Cathryn Bradshaw) and finds a feeling the chapel has no name for. ## Review Jeanette Winterson adapted her own novel for this three-part series, first broadcast on 10 January 1990, and the first thing to say is that she did not soften it. Jess is adopted by a woman who wants a child of God and gets a child. Mother reads the Bible aloud, keeps a list of enemies, buys oranges because they are the only fruit, and waits for the Lord to make use of her daughter. Our verdict is that this is one of the best things British television made about growing up, and that it has lasted because it is funny before it is sad and never stops being either. Geraldine McEwan plays Mother at a constant pitch of busy certainty. She does not rant. She clips her sentences, moves from sink to hymn book to window without pausing, and treats every setback as a test she intends to pass. McEwan makes her ridiculous and then refuses to let us relax, because the ridiculous woman has total power over a child. It is a performance built on small decisions: how she hands over an orange, how she says the word “Next Door”. Charlotte Coleman’s Jess is the reason the series does not become a cartoon of fundamentalism. Coleman plays her as a girl who believes all of it, preaches it with pleasure, and is bewildered rather than rebellious when belief and feeling part company. She has a half-smile that looks like insolence and is actually attention. Emily Aston, as the younger Jess, is solemn and watchful and already a little too clever for the house she lives in. We were angrier than we expected, and it was the chapel that did it rather than Mother. Kidron shoots the congregation praising God over the head of a child in the same flat brown light she uses for the kitchen, so that worship and washing up look like the same activity, and nobody in the frame thinks to ask the child anything. Miss Jewsbury, played by Celia Imrie with a nervous decency the series does not reward, is the one adult who treats Jess as a person rather than a project. David Thewlis turns up as a doctor, and it is a relief to meet someone who asks a question. The chapel is well cast: Elizabeth Spriggs’s May, Barbara Hicks’s Cissy, Freda Dowie’s Mrs Green and Pam Ferris’s Mrs Arkwright make a chorus of hats and opinions, and Margery Withers gives Elsie, the one old woman who is kind to Jess for no reason, a warmth the series badly needs. Kenneth Cranham’s Pastor Finch arrives smooth and damp and preaches with the confidence of a salesman. There is a father, who barely speaks and is barely there. John Strickland’s cutting sets hymn-singing against housework and lets the hymns run on longer than is comfortable, which is the right length. Rachel Portman’s score is small and stays out of the way; the congregation provides most of the music, and it is louder. It is a 1990 television production and looks like one. Interiors are cramped, the exteriors are few, and nothing in the frame is beautiful unless a face is. Some of the chapel women are played broadly, and the comic chorus occasionally tips into panto when the material does not need the help. Winterson has stripped out the fairy-tale interludes of the novel, and readers who loved them will miss them. The third episode has a great deal to get through in 55 minutes and gets through it faster than we wanted. What happens when Jess’s feeling for Melanie becomes known is the matter of the later episodes, and we will not describe it, except to say that the series does not blink and that Coleman and McEwan play it as a fight between two people who love each other, which is worse than the alternative. Produced by Phillippa Giles, it runs three episodes of about 55 minutes each. Watch all three in one sitting, with the lights on, and if you were raised in any kind of church you may find yourself laughing at things you had forgotten were funny and then going quiet for a bit. *Fi1m score 86, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit worth watching?** *Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit* is worth watching for anyone who can take a funny, cruel story about a child raised to be a missionary, and we scored it 86. Geraldine McEwan and Charlotte Coleman are as good a mother and daughter as British television has put on screen. It looks like a 1990 production, and the comic chorus occasionally tips into panto. **How long is Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and what is it rated?** *Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit* has episodes of about 55m. It is a drama series. **Where can I watch Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit in South Korea?** *Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit* is not on any streaming or rental service in South Korea at the moment. It is available in 2 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How does Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit compare to Breaking the Waves?** *Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit* is the funnier and the gentler of the two, a three-part series about a girl raised in a narrow chapel, while [*Breaking the Waves*](https://film.one/film/breaking-the-waves) is a film that asks us to accept a great deal of suffering. Both have a fierce central performance, Coleman here and Emily Watson there. The series is the easier evening and the one we would reach for first. **Is Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit based on a true story or a book?** *Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit* is based on Jeanette Winterson's novel of the same name, which she adapted herself for this three-part series. She did not soften it, but she stripped out the novel's fairy-tale interludes, so readers who loved those will miss them. You do not need to know the book to follow it. ### Reviews we read (1) - **The AV Club**, Nathan Rabin (90/100, inferred): Rabin calls the series brilliant, riveting, and one of the best films about adolescence and blind faith. He particularly praises Charlotte Coleman and Geraldine McEwan’s performances, along with the work’s pitch-black comedy. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/oranges-are-not-the-only-fruit-1798195182) ## Details - **Created by:** Beeban Kidron - **Director:** Beeban Kidron - **Writer:** Jeanette Winterson - **Novel:** Jeanette Winterson - **Editor:** John Strickland - **Music:** Rachel Portman - **Producer:** Phillippa Giles - **Cast:** Charlotte Coleman as Jess; Geraldine McEwan as Mother; Emily Aston as Small Jess; Kenneth Cranham as Pastor Finch; Elizabeth Spriggs as May; Cathryn Bradshaw as Melanie; Celia Imrie as Miss Jewsbury; Freda Dowie as Mrs Green - **Runtime:** 55m - **Release (South Korea):** 10 January 1990 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in South Korea Not streaming, renting or buying in South Korea at the last check. Also available in: AU, GB. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Pariah* (2011): A Brooklyn teenager, a churchgoing mother, and a coming-out told with the same unforced tenderness. - *Mädchen in Uniform* (1931): The girls’ school version, made in Germany in 1931, and still startlingly direct about desire. - *Breaking the Waves* (1996), Fi1m 82: Lars von Trier’s Scottish kirk is as narrow as this chapel, and Emily Watson as fierce as Coleman. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/breaking-the-waves.md) - *My Summer of Love* (2004): Yorkshire, a born-again brother, and two girls in a summer that cannot last. - *Disobedience* (2017): Rachel Weisz returns to Orthodox north London; faith, love and a community that chooses. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/oranges-are-not-the-only-fruit