Daily Mail

What a drama! We’re in for a vintage year of telly

Classic le Carre, Hugh Grant in the ultimate political sex scandal – and the cuddliest animals ever . . .

- Christophe­r Stevens by BAZ BAMIGBOYE IS AWAY

HISTORy, classics and costume dramas are the mainstay of 2018’ s TV highlights, as television turns to the past for the greatest stories ever told. Everywhere you look next year you’ll see lavish epics and historic headlines brought to life. This is not an accident. Telly execs have taken a look ruthlessly at the most successful shows of the past few years and drawn inspiratio­n, now hoping to create even bigger successes.

We loved the gigantic sweep of War And Peace — so here’s another 19th-century mega-novel, Vanity Fair, reimagined in splendid detail. We can’t get enough of mythical romance and slaughter in Game Of Thrones — now get ready for the original, a story as old as civilisati­on based on Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, as two ancient kingdoms clash in Troy.

The nation was gripped by Doctor Foster, the psychologi­cal drama about a woman capable of anything as she fought for survival — just like Sheridan Smith in Clean Break, in which she stars as a gambling addict willing to commit any crime to hold her life together.

And for audiences hypnotised by the vivid modern history of The Crown, we’ll dive into a murky world of sex and attempted murder, with Hugh Grant as Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal.

Ring out the old, bring in the new — it promises to be better than ever.

THE BIG SHOWS TROY (BBC1)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: It’s the ultimate swordsand-sandals epic. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Telling the story of the Trojans, besieged in their doomed city by the Ancient nt Greeks, this Homeric adventure stars David id Threlfall as King Priam and Louis Hunter as his vain, air-headed son Paris, who sparks ks all-out war by plunging into a passionate love ve affair with the divinely beautiful Helen (Bella lla Dayne) — the woman whose face famously sly ‘launched a thousand ships’.

Jonas Armstrong is Menelaos, the jealous ous Greek king who vows to destroy Troy in revenge, while David Gyasi is Achilles.

The story has been filmed many times mes before, most recently with Brad Pitt as Achilles and Orlando Bloom as Paris — not t to mention The Trojan Horse, a 1961 Italian ian production billed as a ‘surging spectacle e of savagery and sex’.

VANITY FAIR (ITV)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: Becky Sharp is the liveliest heroine in all literature. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: For many, it’s the greatest test novel in the English language — more comical mical than Dickens, more trenchant than Austen. Vanity Fair, like the tale le of Troy, has been filmed many times, mes, but each generation finds something hing newly relevant.

This time, Olivia Cooke is the e sly and scheming Becky Sharp — a role l played previously by Susan Hampshire and Reese Witherspoo­n. Michael Palin is the author, William Makepeace Thackeray, narrating his own story, while Suranne Jones is the snobbish teacher Miss Pinkerton, Martin Clunes is the pompous, vain Sir Pitt Crawley and Tom Bateman is his son, Captain Rawdon Crawley.

The novel has been adapted by Gwyneth Hughes, who calls it a cavalcade of ‘ villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting and dancing’. And that’s only what Becky gets up to . . .

THE WOMAN IN WHITE (BBC1)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: This creepy tale will haunt you. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: From the moment Walter Hartright (Ben Hardy) meets a ghostly woman dressed all in moonlight-white on n a misty road, we are trapped in the claustroph­obic world of the classic c Victorian ghost story.

This one co-stars Jessie Buckley, Charles Dance ance and Dougray Scott, ott, and leads us to oa a madhouse. It’s based ed on the 1860 bestseller tie by Wilkie Collins, widely y regarded as one of the first and greatest st ‘ sensation novels’ s’ — the birth of the he horror genre.

First filmed in 1912, 912, earlier versions have starred icons including uding silent- screen queen Blanche Sweet and, in the 1997 television on version, Tara Fitzgerald.

A VERY ENGLISH SCANDAL (BBC1)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: Almost 40 years on, it’s still shocking. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: In the late Seventies, Britain was gripped by political headlines that seemed too farfetched to be possible.

The Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, a married man, was accused of hiring a hitman to kill his gay lover, who had been blackmaili­ng him. Despite all his efforts to hush- up the business, Thorpe stood trial.

Written by Russell T. Davies, this three-part drama features Hugh Grant in his first TV role for nearly 25 years as Thorpe — the similarity in their faces, heightened by the five- o’clock shadow Grant sports, is uncanny.

Ben Whishaw (pictured above) plays his lover, Norman Scott, while other members of the cast include Patricia Hodge, Jason Watkins and Eve Myles.

THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL (BBC1)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: Nobody does it better than le Carre. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: John le Carre’s thriller The Night Manager was one of the Beeb’s biggest hits in years, so it’s no surprise execs are eager for more.

This six- part adventure stars Florence Pugh as Charlie, a young actress holidaying on a Greek island in the Seventies, who is befriended by a dashing stranger (Alexander Skarsgard).

His name is Becker, he’s an Israeli intelligen­ce officer — and he isn’t looking for romance in the sun.

As Charlie is drawn into a complex internatio­nal plot, she discovers she’s acting a role that tha could cost her

her life.

CLEAN BREAK (ITV)

WHY Y YOU MUST TUNE IN: It’s Mrs Mop vs the bankers. WHAT WH IT’S ABOUT: In the th secretive business ne of high finance, Sheridan Sh Smith is almost al invisible — a cleaner cl called Sam who wh vacuums the floors flo of an office block blo in London’s banking ban district. But Sam has a secret of her h own: she’s addicted addi c t to online gambling. gambling When she overhears hears two businessme­n discussing an illegal illeg deal that could net them millions, she starts to plot a way out of debt. Armed with only a copy of Trading For Dummies and a sheaf of stolen informatio­n, she takes on the stock market. In recent years, dramas such as The Moorside and The C Word have consolidat­ed Smith’s status, despite a sometimes erratic career, as one of our most exciting actresses.

SAVE ME (SKY)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: It’s a compelling psychologi­cal thriller. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Suranne Jones is another actress who has forced her way to the forefront of TV drama over the past couple of years.

Here she is again, this time playing Claire, a single mother living on a London estate whose 13-year- old

daughter has gone missing. Claire hasn’t seen her ex for a decade, but in her desperatio­n to find her child she puts all past bitterness behind her — and discovers that while she’s been bringing up their daughter, former boyfriend Nelly (Lennie James) hasn’t changed one scrap. He’s still the charming, useless, womanising waster she fell for as a young woman.

Now, for the first time, he has a chance to do something worthwhile — save his daughter’s life.

KISS ME FIRST (C4)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: You’ve never seen anything quite like this. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Despite the global domination of social media and the worldwide threat of the dark web, TV dramas have struggled to reflect our new electronic existence.

This cutting-edge thriller blends live action with computer graphics to tell the story of a shy 19-yearold drawn into a web-based game where her own life is at stake. Tallulah Haddon plays Leila, a lonely game-player befriended online by a party-loving girl called Tess, who invites her to try Red Pill — not a drug, but an addictive game run by a psychopath.

The deeper Leila strays into Red Pill, the more she loses touch with reality.

COLLATERAL (BBC2)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: The cast alone is unmissable.

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Set over four days, this fast-paced thriller from Sir David Hare traces the chaotic consequenc­es of a murder after a pizza-delivery man is shot.

John Simm, Nicola Walker and Billie Piper all feature — plus Hollywood’s Carey Mulligan as a stubborn Detective Inspector determined to find the killer. But to do that she first has to strip bare the personal lives of many people, including a senior politician and a troubled vicar, who would prefer to keep their secrets.

This is Hare’s first TV drama for three years, and though the Oscarwinni­ng playwright has been writing for the BBC since 1973, this is the first full TV series he has conceived himself.

ANIMALS WITH CAMERAS (BBC1)

WHY YOU MUST TUNE IN: It’s an entirely new way to see the animal kingdom. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Brilliant wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan is handing his cameras to the real stars of the show, hanging video lenses around the necks of chimpanzee­s, seals, bears and even meerkats.

It’s a brilliant notion made possible by advances in technology which mean pin-sharp footage can be captured by devices that weigh only a few ounces. The lenses even include thermal cameras for shooting in the pitch-darkness of undergroun­d burrows.

Gordon’s biggest challenge, as this three-part series begins, is getting the cameras on to the wild animals in the first place.

Asking a meerkat to turn cameraman is tricky enough — but how do you strap a collar on a bear?

 ??  ?? Seduction: Olivia Cooke and Tom Bateman in ITV’s Vanity Fair
Seduction: Olivia Cooke and Tom Bateman in ITV’s Vanity Fair
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 ??  ?? Ill-fated love: Louis Hunter and Bella Dayne as Paris and Helen in BBC1’s Troy
Ill-fated love: Louis Hunter and Bella Dayne as Paris and Helen in BBC1’s Troy

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