The Handmaids Tale

A Harold Pinter adaptation of Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood's bestselling 1986 novel, The Handmaid's Tale shows a near future scenario where right-wing religious fundamentalists have overthrown the American government and established a repressive puritanical society called the Republic Of Gilead. Environmental disasters, pollution and STDs have left most women infertile, with those remaining capable of bearing children being conscripted as 'handmaids' for the men in the upper hierarchies of the regime, to bear children on behalf of their wives, using the biblical story of Rachel as a model. Natasha Richardson won the Evening Standard award for Best Actress that year for her portrayal of the handmaid.