The programme stars Naomie Harris and Ruth Wilson as joint respective female protagonists Hortense Roberts and Queenie Bligh, two women who struggle to fulfil their personal ambitions and dreams amidst the chaos of World War II London and Jamaica.

The drama consists of two 90-minute episodes that premiered on 6 December 2009, subsequently being shown in the United States on PBS as part of the channel's Masterpiece Classic Collection beginning on 18 April 2010.

Trying to escape economic hardship on their own "small island," they have moved to England, the Mother Country, for which the men have fought during the war.

The beginning or prologue of the story focuses on the young Jamaican girl, Hortense, who has three dreams: to marry her childhood companion Michael, to move to faraway England, and to become a teacher.

Queenie is a poor working-class girl from Yorkshire who longs for better things in her life than her family's pig farming business.

When her aunt dies suddenly, Queenie marries the well-to-do Bernard Bligh, in order to avoid having to move back to the pig farm.

World War II then uproots all of their lives: Michael, in disgrace after being caught in an adulterous relationship, leaves Jamaica to join the Royal Air Force (RAF).

Bernard, impulsively, also joins the RAF, leaving Queenie to look after his mentally incapacitated father, who is shell-shocked after fighting in World War I.

Desperate to get to England, Hortense offers Gilbert the money for the fare, on condition that he marry her and send for her when he has found work and a place to live.

When she goes into labour and has a dark-skinned baby, the father is known (by the film's audience) to be Michael after he returned to her house before travelling to Canada for a fresh start.

When Michael is sent away to the war, Hortense instinctively fights to keep her dream alive and proposes to Gilbert, a man she hardly knows, but someone who will aid her passage to England.

She arrives in a country that both surprises and disappoints her in its bleak and unfriendly "greyness", but it is through this new life that she discovers a different side to her character and, for the first time, the meaning of true love.

[1] Gilbert appears the charming fool, but underneath he is a principled and naturally idealistic man who signs up to fight the war in England—not only with hopes of bettering himself, but also because he knows the world will be a darker place if Hitler is not defeated.

Unable to afford the fare for the Empire Windrush, he accepts the offer from the proud and snobbish Hortense to pay for his passage in exchange for marriage.

His marriage to Hortense may be one of convenience, but over time she begins to see the noble, kind and wise man that Gilbert is, which allows him to grow into the person he was destined to become.

Returning from boarding school as an independent, handsome man, Michael soon begins a scandalous affair with a local teacher, before joining the British air force.

[6] Guy Adams of The Independent was surprised and impressed with the BBC for using its Sunday-night flagship slot to show something that was not "very formal, very English, and very safe", instead offering "thought-provoking" drama that he acclaimed as "beautifully paced and at times very moving".

Cast member David Oyelowo also praised the production as something fresh and new, noting that "The black experience has been very under-represented in terms of drama, and maybe Small Island can help highlight what an oversight that is.

John Preston of The Telegraph complained that the time-shifts in the screenplay "made it extremely hard to settle into the story" and derided the narration as weak and simplistic.

[8] James Walton, also of The Telegraph, was a little more generous but also complained of the weaknesses in the screenplay, labelling the narration as an "unignorable flaw", something that "diminishes [the action] to a series of staggering banalities."

[9] Upon its April 2010 US premiere on Masterpiece Classic, Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe wrote:[10] This evocative two-part miniseries has a lot going for it: rich period design, an engagingly twisty plot, performances with depth, intriguing racial and class issues.