Watch, listen and be inspired by Calum Henderson's definitive list of what's hot right now and from the vault.
A Very British Scandal (Prime Video)
A Very American Scandal? Sorry, not interested. A Very Australian Scandal? Thanks but we'll pass. A Very Kiwi Scandal? Get out.
A Very British Scandal? Now we're talking. If there's one thing the old mother country has always done better than anywhere else it's a tawdry scandal. Further proof should you need it can be found in the follow-up to 2018's A Very English Scandal (now with added Scotland).
The prestige BBC miniseries tells the story of the marriage of Ian and Margaret Campbell, aka the Duke and Duchess of Argyll – and the couple's extraordinary divorce case (Argyll v Argyll), which was the talk of the tabloids in 1963.
The first episode of the three-part series takes us back 16 years prior, when the debonair Ian (Paul Bettany) recognises the chic Margaret (Claire Foy) on a train. He recalls seeing her at a soiree in Paris years earlier: "I said 'there's the girl I'm going to marry'." Who'd you say that to, she asks. "My wife," he replies in a sly drawl.
From there it's a sordid and steamy procession of dimly-lit castles, fast boats and mid-century sunglasses, with lashings of dramatic foreshadowing. "We have to promise," she says to him at one of the aforementioned castles, "that we will never ever bore one another."
Another example arrives in the form of a letter from the Duke's old wife to his new one after he remarries. "I hope," she writes, "you never have to know the agony of having your private life laid bare for all to see."
We get there soon enough, but a scandal is nothing without a backstory. And this one truly seems to have it all. If rich people being awful to each other is your thing, this is very much the scandal for you.
Anatomy of a Scandal (Netflix)
If you prefer your very British scandals to take place in the modern day, Netflix has got you sorted on that front. American TV powerhouse David E Kelley's adaptation of Sarah Vaughan's 2018 novel takes place in the aftermath of an affair between a Tory MP (Rupert Friend) and one of his parliamentary aides (Naomi Scott). After he gives his wife (Sienna Miller) the courtesy call to let her know his five-month affair is now minutes away from being front-page news, things quickly go from bad to very, very bad in a way scandals tend to do.
No Return (TVNZ OnDemand)
This week in holidays from hell we join the Powells from England on a well-deserved family holiday in Turkey. It's all fun and games until the local police show up at their accommodation early one morning and arrest 16-year-old Noah on suspicion of committing a serious crime. Navigating the local justice system doesn't feature on any TripAdvisor lists and for very good reason – it turns out to be a nightmare for everyone involved, especially mum Kathy (Sheridan Smith, an increasingly ubiquitous presence in these kinds of middling British dramas). Cancel the baklava tasting, we're going to Turkish court.
Roar (Apple TV+)
If you like the sound of weird and darkly funny short stories with a feminist twist, definitely track down a copy of Cecelia Ahern's 2018 collection, Roar. If you're not fussed about the reading part and would prefer to simply watch some of those stories in a TV anthology series adapted by the creators of GLOW and starring the likes of Nicole Kidman, Issa Rae, Alison Brie and Merritt Wever, now you can do that too. One website has even ranked every episode by weirdness in case you want to go straight to the one where a woman has an affair with a duck.
Movie of the Week: In the Heights (Neon)
What do you get when you pair the director of Crazy Rich Asians with the writer of Hamilton? In the Heights would have to be close to the best-case scenario. Director Jon M Chu's adaptation of Quiara Alegria Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage musical (which predates Hamilton by more than a decade) is a bright and exuberant celebration of community, set in the mostly Dominican neighbourhood of Washington Heights in Manhattan. Pair with the Miranda-directed Tick, Tick … Boom! On Netflix for a modern musical double-header.
From the Vault: Dunkirk (2017) (TVNZ 1, 8:30pm Monday)
One of the greatest war movies ever made stars Harry Styles from One Direction and there's nothing anybody can do about it. The highlight of Christopher Nolan's directorial career tells the story of the Allied forces' evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 through the eyes of some of the hundreds of thousands of young soldiers on land, at sea and in the air that day, capturing the horrors of war with a minimum of dialogue and some spectacularly-executed action sequences.
Podcast of the Week: British Scandal
Fair warning: British Scandal the podcast series has nothing to do with A Very British Scandal the TV show. But as the British love to say: In for a penny, in for a pound. If you aren't getting enough British scandals in your TV diet and want to be able to listen to them on the way to and from work as well, this is probably the feed you're after.
Hosts Matt Forde and Alice Levine (My Dad Wrote A Porno) have been churning through the big book of British scandals at a rate of knots since the podcast – Wondery's transatlantic answer to its popular American Scandal series – launched last year. Their mission, it seems, is to recap British scandals in a knockabout way similar to how My Favourite Murder recaps murders.
Many of the stories recapped here have already been told much better by other podcasts – the current series is basically a recap of the podcast Bed of Lies. But as a one-stop scandal shop they've got the market covered, from the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire coughing scandal to the Profumo Affair, Robert Maxwell to phone hacking, Lord Lucan and much more.
