Amazon Prime
Preacher
This darkly funny and, at times, almost psychedelically odd drama is adapted from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s comics. It stars Dominic Cooper (pictured) as a bad-boy preacher, just about keeping it together in bizarro small-town America. But that’s the very least of it. Preacher also features vampires, exploding holy men, a manic Joseph Gilgun and a kid called Arseface (you’ll understand when you see him). It’s hard to describe – but in a good way. We’d recommend just watching it.
Available now
Lucky Louie
Very much a portrait of the comedian as a young(er) man but, even so, this sitcom contains many of the embryonic elements that Louis CK would sharpen in his subsequent show Louie. Once again CK plays a lamer, less successful version of himself, but here he’s stuck in the testy domesticity he would escape in Louie. The laugh track gives it a surprisingly traditional feel, but it’s still full of sharply bleak wit.
Available now
Vice.com
Locked Off
Did the illegal rave scene die in the 90s? Maybe, but as traditional clubs close and youngsters get priced out of the kind of lairy fun that used to be their birthright, it’s undergoing a heartening rebirth. This hugely entertaining film goes in search of the new generation of nitrous oxide-huffing, bolt-cutter wielding hedonists and – from the heart of London to the wilds of Wales –finds that the kids (along with a few old ravers getting 1988 flashbacks) are once again doing their righteously boggle-eyed thing.
Available now
Netflix
Hibana
Netflix’s first Japanese original is a comedy-drama following two manzai performers as they stumble around Tokyo attempting to make their name. Manzai is a genre of Japanese standup based on the “funny man, straight man” premise. That this seems to be an act with two straight men is, of course, part of the wider comedy and also prompts a certain melancholy – witness their endless polishing of a not particularly funny routine about a parrot for proof of hilarity drifting into longueurs.
Available from Thursday
BBC iPlayer
Hillsborough
This gruelling, brilliant documentary feels like the definitive TV take on the 1989 tragedy that turned into a source of national shame, thanks to 27 years of political inaction, police cover- ups and media lies. The film hears from survivors, cops, bereaved families and Phil Scraton, whose book Hillsborough: The Truth is now accepted as the last word on the subject. Unflinching and extremely necessary television from the BBC.
Available now
All 4
Man vs Nature
Just in time for summer, All 4 have collected a series of films about extreme cold. There’s the story of Aron Ralston (127 Hours), who was forced to amputate his own arm to escape from a ravine. There’s the icy nightmare of Touching The Void. There’s The Beckoning Silence, in which Joe Simpson returns to mountaineering. And there’s Walking The Himalayas, in which – for once – nothing traumatic happens. Phew.
Available now
