Fanny Lye Deliver'd

Maxine Peake excels in Thomas Clay’s period drama set in 1657, when King Charles I has recently been beheaded and Oliver Cromwell is in control of the nation.

Fanny Lye (Maxine Peake), her puritanical husband, John (Charles Dance), and their son, live a quiet life in the countryside, when a man and a woman arrive at their homestead looking for shelter. Soon, the libertarian ways of the new arrivals begin to horrify the upright God-fearing family. A showdown between the buttoned-up family and the hedonistic couple, foreshadows a further violent bust-up between the law and blasphemy. A wonderful and uplifting film about political/patriarchal repression and sexual/spiritual freedom, it has links with the Quaker movement.

• Asha Richards