TELEVISION
1.The Voice Of Ireland
RTÉ ONE, TONIGHT, 6.30PM Now in its fifth series, the hit talent show is back with coaches Kian Egan, Una Foden, below right, Rachel Stevens and Bressie trying to steer their artists to the title. The show kicks off with the blind auditions which always prove popular.
2. The X-Files
CHANNEL 5, EARLY FEBRUARY Mulder and Scully are set for six more mind-bending sci-fi mysteries, 13 years after the end of the original run. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprise their iconic roles as the FBI agents.
3. Vinyl
SKY ATLANTIC, FEBRUARY 15 HBO’s new show looks like a smash hit: produced by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger and written by Boardwalk Empire’s Terence Winter, it’s a ten-part saga of sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll in Seventies New York and stars Bobby Cannavale and Ray Romano.
4. Wish List
TV3, EARLY 2016 Brian Ormond has jumped ship from RTÉ to host this formatted game show on TV3. Shane Richie originally hosted it on ITV and it gives families the chance to play for prizes they could only dream of.
5. Dragons’ Den
RTÉ ONE, LATE 2016 With two new female Dragons in the Den, this series promises to be feistier than ever. Gavin Duffy is the only original surviving investor while Richard Curran hosts.
6. Cold Feet
ITV, 2016 Almost 20 years after they first charmed the nation, the BAFTA-winning comedy drama returns, complete with original stars James Nesbitt, Robert Bathurst, Hermione Norris, John Thomson and Fay Ripley. And if anything life’s even more complex for the now fiftysomethings.
7. The Crown
NETFLIX, 2016 Directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) and written by Peter Morgan (The Queen), this ten-part series goes behind the doors of two of the most famous addresses in the world – 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Matt Smith, Claire Foy and John Lithgow all star.
8. Doctor Thorne
ITV, 2016 Downton’s Julian Fellowes wrote this three-part adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s 1858 novel. The setting is Greshamsbury Park, where the terrifying Lady Arabella (Rebecca Front) hopes to save the family estate by making a rich marriage.
9. The Restaurant
TV3, EARLY 2016 The former RTÉ cookery show is enjoying a new lease of life on TV3. Now an hour long and with the inclusion of new critic, Marco Pierre White, expect series two to be bigger brighter and bolder than ever.
10. Maigret
ITV, 2016 A rare TV outing for Rowan Atkinson as the legendary French detective created by Georges Simenon in two stand-alone films
set in Fifties Paris. Fiona Shaw also stars.
One to watch
The other Irishman to give Aidan Turner a run for the money in the abs department, Jamie Dornan, will be back, not just on cinema screens as he reprises his role as BDSM-obsessed billionaire Christian Grey in 50 Shades Darker, but also in the Netflix film Jadotville in which he plays army commander Patrick Quinlan in the film about the 1961 siege of an Irish UN battalion by 3,000 Congolese troops. A new season of The Fall, where he goes back to darker serial killer territory, is also expected on the BBC and RTÉ.