TV: Walter Presents
Channel 4 announces itself as a major player in the crowded subtitled drama field with this new streaming service. The Walter of its title is erstwhile TV exec Walter Iuzzolino, who has hand-picked these foreign-language series, from Danish vampire thriller Heartless to Kabul Kitchen, a French comedy-drama based on the real-life tale of a journalist who ran a restaurant for expats during during the early 00s US war in Afghanistan. Further titles will be added later in the year, with a select few – such as Deutschland 83 also receiving a broadcast on Channel 4 or More4.
TV: Dickensian
This grand-scale BBC serial chucks all of Dickens’s characters into a single Victorian London and lets them get on with it, an idea so brilliantly simple it’s remarkable that it hasn’t been tried before. The characters here – Miss Havisham, Scrooge, Fagin – are intimately familiar, but seeing them interact with each other outside of their respective novels brings a freshness to the source material that proves immensely enjoyable.
TV: Mozart In The Jungle
The first run of this drama about the travails of a symphony orchestra flew under the radar when it was released at the end of the year. That’s a bit of a surprise, given that Mozart In The Jungle actually makes for highly bingeable fare, boasting a strong cast – Gael García Bernal, Lola Kirke, Malcolm McDowell – and a zippy, soapy sense of pacing. Perhaps this second series, which promises romantic turmoil between Kirke and Bernal’s characters as well as money troubles for the orchestra, might be the one that sees the show graduate from minor to major player.
Amazon Prime Video
Audio: Serial
Not up to speed with series two of Sarah Koenig’s popular podcast? Time to get caught up: it may well be the only thing anyone’s talking about when you get back to work after the festive break. This time the focus is on Bowe Bergdahl, the army deserter kept prisoner by the Taliban for nearly five years. Just why did he walk away?
TV: Matt Berry Does… Happy New You
When BBC execs talk about the corporation’s bold “digital future”, they’re probably not referring to Matt Berry’s extremely daft iPlayer shorts. Not that that matters a jot: as inessential as they may be, they’re also very funny. This final instalment in the occasional series celebrates festive excess, with Berry narrating, in that sonorous but silly voice of his, over stock footage of chubby-looking animals. As an extra treat, Bob Mortimer pops by to lend his vocal talents to proceedings.
