Play cultural catch-up with our top 10 TV shows, albums, podcasts, films and books

The world feels like it’s ending and you’ve run out of toilet roll, so why not relax and watch something nice?

PART OF THE ALARM around Covid-19 has been the uncomfortable choice of phrases that surround its messaging. Look, we get it. In order to make people break behaviours abruptly and effectively, an element of fear must be implicit. But if we think of ‘social distancing’ or ‘self-isolation’ as, say, ‘staying at home’ instead, these new habits we’re all attuning to take on a tender new texture.

Let’s call it hunkering down. Putting on a favourite old pair of pyjamas at 9am and not changing all day. Melting a chocolate bar into a glass of hot milk. Putting in a regular Skype call to someone you actually love, where the work break once was. In other words, doing entirely what you want to in the confines of your own home with none of the guilt of taking a crafty sickie from work. Because everyone’s at it.

If you pick the right home entertainment accompaniments, there is a plethora of unstressful, lovely, familiar and absolutely top quality entertainment at your disposal. The following selections have been handpicked from across genres and without regard for when they were released. Now isn’t necessarily the time to impress your friends with your tantalising taste for everything new. It’s about revisiting old screen and print friends, the classics you missed but always meant to watch and read, the favourites that have all stood the test of time. It’s about letting culture do its kindest work and looking after you and yours for however long we need it to.

Oh, and by way of sobering comparison to the position we find ourselves in now? Imagine this happening in the ’80s, when there were four TV channels and whatever video cassettes clogged a smoked glass unit below the box telly. The good news? It isn’t. Now, breathe, enjoy, come hunker with us.