Also coming to streaming
Gaslit (StarzPlay, from April 24)
Slow Burn is a podcast, each series focusing on a different, headline-grabbing subject. The first took a deep dive into Watergate, and featured, among others, interviews with Bob Woodward, one of the journalists who broke the story. It was a huge success, both with critics and listeners, and has now been used as the basis of a new drama, which takes a look at the scandal from an unusual angle. Julia Roberts and Sean Penn are almost unrecognisable as Martha and John Mitchell, an Arkansan socialite and her husband, who was President Richard Nixon’s loyal Attorney General. It reveals how, despite her husband’s affiliation and closeness to the then most powerful man in the world, it was Martha who first publicly raised the alarm – forcing her husband to choose between them.
Shining Girls (Apple TV+, from April 30)
South African author
Lauren Beukes has penned some of the most intriguing and inventive, genre-mixing novels of the past decade. The Shining Girls was published in 2013, and the big surprise is that it’s taken so long for it to be turned into a TV series. Thankfully the wait is worth it.
The eight-part run stars Elisabeth Moss as Kirby Mazrachi, a Chicago newspaper archivist whose dreams of becoming a journalist were wrecked by a traumatic assault. When she hears about a recent murder which bears the hallmarks of her experience, she sets out to unmask the killer with help from a seasoned if troubled reporter. Wagner Moura, Amy Brennerman and Jamie Bell co-star.
Ten Percent (Amazon Prime, from April 30)
In 2015, French TV viewers were treated to the first series of the comedydrama Dix pour cent. It was a huge success, but perhaps a bigger surprise was that it eventually became a worldwide smash after being made available on Netflix, which renamed it Call My Agent! Clearly somebody at Prime spotted its potential for an Englishlanguage remake, and this is the result. The brains behind it is John Morton, the Bafta-winning creator of the BBC sitcoms Twenty Twelve and its spin-off W1A, so it certainly has a great pedigree. The story has been moved from France to a London talent agency, and focuses on the life of its staff and clients. Jack Davenport, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Steed and Lydia Leonard star.