Awesome AUTUMN TV
Keeley Hawes, Jim Carrey or Sheridan Smith — who will you be watching?
As we are bombarded with trailers for Vanity Fair, ITV’s bigbudget adaptation of Thackeray’s wickedly funny masterpiece, starring Olivia Cooke as scheming Becky sharp, you might wonder if there will be anything else on the box once the nights start getting colder.
The answer is a gratifying ‘yes’ — no end of treats.
some of the most impressive names in movies — Hilary swank, Jim Carrey, Toni Collette and Donald sutherland — join smallscreen superstars including David suchet, John simm, Keeley Hawes, sheridan smith and Vicky McClure in a welter of great dramas.
There are standout comedies and documentaries, too.
so, take a look at what’s ahead and make a date with your favourites . . .
STRANGERS
ITV, September John Simm has delivered some stupendous performances over the past few years — first as The Master in disguise on Doctor who and then in the revenge drama Trauma and political thriller Collateral.
Here, he is a London professor whose life disintegrates when his wife is killed in a Hong Kong car crash. He must identify the body, then unravel a web of conspiracy surrounding her death.
emilia Fox is the British consul who becomes mixed up in his investigations.
set against the neon backdrop of one of the world’s most crowded cities, it promises to be as dazzling as it is confusing.
BODYGUARD
BBC1, end of August star richard Madden posted on Instagram a picture of his bloodstained script . . . intriguing! Line Of Duty creator Jed Mercurio is reunited with actress Keeley Hawes in this whitehall thriller, in which Hawes plays an ambitious Home secretary whose bodyguard (Madden) realises his own political views are utterly opposed to hers.
should he be prepared to take a bullet for her when sometimes he dreams of shooting her? ‘I don’t need you to vote for me — only protect me,’ she snaps at him.
DOCTOR WHO
BBC1, September Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall takes over the show’s helm and Jodie whittaker is the first female Doctor.
The Time Lord’s gender isn’t the only change: Chibnall has hinted there won’t be Daleks or other traditional alien foes such as Cybermen. There are three new companions, including quiz host Bradley walsh. It all threatens to be unrecognisably different.
PRESS
BBC1, September from the pen of Doctor Foster creator Mike Bartlett, this series has David suchet brilliantly cast as a global newspaper baron and owner of a British tabloid called The Post. Ben Chaplin — the wicked seducer in apple Tree Yard — is his editor, while Priyanga Burford is the editor of the rival Herald newspaper.
Crisscrossing storylines follow love lives, grudges and skulduggery among staff, both in and out of the office.
Bartlett insists that he was motivated by ‘a genuine desire to explore what [journalists] do, why it is important, how they do it and how it affects them personally. It’s an exploration, not an attack’. Bet he takes a swipe at TV critics, though.
A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES
Sky One, September a BIT like Harry Potter with added romance, this eightpart series stars australian actress Teresa Palmer as Diana, a gifted, but unschooled, witch at Oxford university who uncovers an arcane book of magic that all the world’s vampires, demons and wizards have been seeking for centuries. That attracts the attention of bloodsucker Matthew Goode, who promptly falls in love with her.
Hokum it may be, but the trilogy of books on which it is based has legions of fans. author Deborah