MIKE WARD’S SMALL SCREEN

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (PG) (Download now, DVD and Blu-ray from Monday) MUSICALS and circuses are two forms of entertainment that seriously divide opinion, to put it politely.

And here they are in a single package – which turns out to be superbly entertaining.

Telling the story of P.T. Barnum’s legendary circus – with Hugh Jackman as the man himself, Zac Efron as his partner and Michelle Williams as his wife – it may be fact-based only in the loosest sense, but it’s hard not to find yourself swept along by the film’s sheer exuberance.

That, and some great songs. As La La Land showed not so long back, there’s a fresh appetite for the sort of oldfashioned movies it seemed they didn’t make any more, so long as they’re dished up with lots of 21st Century flair.

SAFE

(Netflix)

NETFLIX’S new eightpart drama certainly boasts mouthwatering credentials.

It’s been dreamed up by bestselling American thriller writer Harlan Coben, written by our own Danny Brocklehurst and features a top-notch cast including Michael C Hall, Amanda Abbington, Marc Warren, Hannah NEXT WEEK: Ryan Reynolds’ wisecracking mutant mercenary takes on Josh Brolin’s time-travelling soldier in comicbook sequel Terry Crews and TJ Miller also star.

A young space smuggler makes a hairy friend and encounters the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Aldren Ehrenreich stars. Arterton and Emmett J Scanlan.

Hall stars as Tom, a widowed surgeon and devoted father who’s still struggling to get over his wife’s death a year ago – and who, we’ll also discover, is racked with guilt over something that happened that night.

When Tom’s eldest daughter suddenly disappears, it triggers a sequence of events that leaves him questioning all he thought he knew about those nearest and dearest to him.

ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD (15)

(Download now, DVD and Blu-ray from Monday) CHRISTOPHER Plummer picked up multiple award nominations for his role here as billionaire J Paul Getty in a cracking story based on the real-life kidnap of Getty’s grandson in 1973.

Ironically, he wasn’t meant to be in the film, but Kevin Spacey’s part was recast and reshot after sexual assault claims. Not cheap but it sure as hell paid off.

MOLLY’S GAME (15) (Download now, DVD and Blu-ray from Monday)

IN yet another fact-based story, Jessica Chastain plays Molly Bloom, top skier-turned-poker princess, running a high-stakes game that’s about to drag her into dangerous waters.