News

To celebrate the release of The Madame Blanc Mysteries Series 3 & Series 1-3 DVD Box Set, arriving on DVD and digital 26 February 2024, we are giving away a Series 3 DVD to a lucky winner!

We return to fabulous France for more escapist charm with the marvellous The Madame Blanc Mysteries Series 3. TV favourite Sally Lindsay co-writes and takes the lead role alongside Sue Vincent in this much-loved, warm-hearted series.

Kicking off with a festive special – in which a murder mystery party becomes all too real, when an actual murder victim is discovered – we once again join antique dealer turned amateur sleuth Jean White (Lindsay). We follow the amiable amateur detective and her friends as they investigate more concerning crimes, set against the stunning vistas of Sainte Victoire in this third helping of Gallic goodness.

With a captivating blend of suspense, charismatic characters, compelling storylines and unexpected twists, The Madame Blanc Mysteries continues...

Disney+ has debuted the trailer for the highly anticipated, brand-new Original series ‘The Full Monty’. From the makers of the iconic BAFTA-award-winning movie, the eight-part series will premiere exclusively on Disney+ on Wednesday 14 June in the UK.

Taking place 25 years after the original British smash hit, the 8×60’ series will follow the same band of brothers as they navigate the post-industrial city of Sheffield, and society’s crumbling healthcare, education, and employment sectors. The comedy-drama will uncover what happened to the gang after they put their kit back on, exploring their brighter, sillier and more desperate moments. It will also highlight how the fiercely funny world of these working-class heroes – still residing in Sheffield – has changed in the intervening decades.

Reprising their roles are fan-favourite roles with Robert Carlyle as Gaz, Mark Addy as Dave, Lesley Sharp as Jean, Hugo Speer as Guy, Paul Barber as Horse, Steve Huison as Lomper,...

It takes many people to fill Richard Osman’s shoes, and not just because he wears a size 14. Back in April 2021, the TV presenter, producer and novelist announced that he was leaving his co-presenter role on Pointless to focus on his hugely successful Thursday Murder Club book series and other projects. Due to the ‘stars we see in the night sky are actually hundreds of years in the past’ nature of TV broadcast, by that point, Osman was already four months out of the job. His final episode of the regular Pointless (he’ll still appear on the celebrity editions) was filmed in December 2021 and aired in July 2022, with this touching message to Alexander Armstrong.

When Pointless returned for Series 28 in September 2022, it came with a rotating clutch of new guest-hosts sitting behind Osman’s fact-checking desk. First up was Sally Lindsay, and following her were Stephen Mangan, Lauren Laverne,...

We’re bereft. Happy Valley has ended for good. No more Catherine and Clare having mugs of tea on the back step, no more Sgt Cawood dressed like RoboCop, no more Ryan, no more Tommy Lee Royce. It went out with a bang, but still we’re bereft. What could possibly fill that gap?

Luckily for fans, creator Sally Wainwright has a healthy back-catalogue including comedy At Home With the Braithwaites, Last Tango in Halifax, Unforgiven, Gentleman Jack and more, plus highwaywoman drama The Ballad of Renegade Nell coming this year to Disney+, so you could start there. And try the below, a hand-picked selection of great dramas – some crime, some not – that carry a flavour of Happy Valley’s brilliant writing, real-feeling characters and unforgettable performances.

Last Tango in Halifax

Stream on: BBC iPlayer (UK), Netflix (US)

Wainwright was inspired by her mother’s late-in-life love story to write this Bafta-winning 5-series BBC drama.

Try as you might to banish the image of James Norton’s Tommy Lee Royce brutally assaulting Sarah Lancashire’s Sergeant Catherine Cawood in Season 1 of “Happy Valley,” chances are it’s emblazoned in your memory of the iconic British crime thriller.

Writer Sally Wainwright, who is about as nervy as her flawed but heroic Yorkshire policewoman, never shied away from baring all with the hit police drama. In fact, she barely blinked when the show’s depictions of violence against women came under attack. But in writing Season 3, which returns to the BBC on New Year’s Day after seven years, Wainwright says the state of policing in the U.K. gave her pause to bring back her noble police protagonist.

“TV dramas about police officers usually make heroes of the police,” Wainwright tells Variety. “I did that in this, and in ‘Scott & Bailey,’ and [recent events] have made me...

Richard Osman has feigned outrage over the fact that the laptop in the Pointless studio actually works.

In April, the BBC announced that Osman had quit Pointless after almost 13 years.

The TV personality had presented the show since its very first episode in 2009 with Alexander Armstrong, with the latter now being joined by a rotating cast of co-presenters for the new series.

Coronation Street and Scott & Bailey star Sally Lindsay was the first celebrity to step into Osman’s shoes for last night’s episode (20 September), and she made use of a laptop in the studio to help her present.

Sharing an image of Lindsay using the computer, Osman – who was hardly seen going on the device during his years as host – tweeted: “Wait, the laptop Works Now????”

Lindsay later posted: “Thank you everyone (especially the legend @richardosman) for your comments and support regarding Pointless. It’s such a...

Just as “Game of Thrones” came to an end, HBO announced that it has renewed “Gentleman Jack” for a second season. That’s great news for fans of British actress Gemma Whelan, who essentially amounts to a Venn diagram of where the two shows’ audiences overlap.

On “GoT” Whelan built a devoted following as Yara Greyjoy, Queen of the Iron Islands and sister to Theon (Alfie Allen). Her character in “Gentleman Jack” is a far cry from the bloodthirsty lothario she plays on “Thrones,” however; as conservative Marian she antagonizes her casanova sister, the swaggering butch Anne Lister (Suranne Jones). Though Whelan herself is straight, she has endeared herself to Lgbtq audiences with one gay and one gay-adjacent role; it is a testament to her versatility as an actress that her two biggest TV roles could not be more different.

A co-production between HBO and the BBC, “Gentleman Jack” has...

It’s a rare series that can say so much with a single image. In the poster for “Gentleman Jack,” Sally Wainwright’s rollicking new period comedy for HBO, the actress Suranne Jones stands in half profile, cutting an undeniably intriguing figure. Her hair rests in tight ringlets above the ear, she looks exceedingly smart in her top hat and waistcoat — both black, her color of choice. Her head is cocked to the side, and, turned away from the adoring woman at her side, she offers a cunning smile.

This is Anne Lister, or the TV version of her anyway, and just a few minutes into the first episode of “Gentleman Jack” one thing becomes very clear — there has never been a true life character more worthy of her own TV show.

Born in Halifax, England, in 1791, Anne Lister was a diarist as prolific as Samuel Pepys. That her name...

At the very end of “Gentleman Jack’s” first episode, the eponymous protagonist shows up unannounced but fully prepared to start courting a new love interest. Giddy with excitement, “Jack” asks to see the lady of the house and, with a quick pump of the eyebrows, looks directly into the camera.

While far from a revolutionary choice in the golden age of “Fleabag,” a character breaking the fourth wall is still rather surprising in what’s otherwise a by-the-books period drama. Sure, writer-director Sally Wainwright (“Happy Valley”) shows a bit of flair from time to time — a cracking, up-tempo rhythm accompanies the title credits — but she needs to show more. You see, Gentleman Jack is Anne Lister (Suranne Jones), whose decoded diary entries inspire the series of the same name. A music cue here and a fourth-wall break there don’t quite match the swagger of this Lgbtq icon — or...

In 1832, Anne Lister knew that if the wrong pair of eyes landed on her long-kept diary, she would be ostracized — it was a detailed log of everything from the weather to her sexual encounters with women, at a time when same-sex relationships were unacceptable to most of society.

So she wrote parts of the diary in a secret code.

Cut to the 1990s, when a fellow resident of Halifax, England discovered the 27-volume, 5-million-word diary of the woman the BBC and others have described as Britain’s “first modern lesbian.” Screenwriter Sally Wainwright decided to turn Lister’s story into a TV show — “Gentleman Jack” will premiere on Monday on HBO. It gets its title from the nickname townspeople were said to have given Lister due to her penchant for dressing all in black and refusal to conform to the traditional women’s clothing of the time.

Also Read: 'The...

Both HBO and BBC are no strangers to historical dramas, but it certainly seems like “Gentleman Jack” features a unique protagonist for either network. Based on her extensive personal writings, 19th century landowner and noted social rebel Anne Lister gets a series of her own, set to debut stateside next month. Suranne Jones plays the black-clad businesswoman, who not only sought to develop industrial projects on her family’s land, but made her intentions known to marry a wife in the process. The series combines a central romance between Lister and her intended, Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle), and Lister’s attempts to reinvigorate the coal-mining efforts on her family property at Shibden Hall.

The series comes from TV powerhouse Sally Wainwright, who also wrote and created the British police drama “Happy Valley,” which eventually came under the Netflix Originals banner after first premiering on BBC One. Wainwright also helped to...

Sophie Rundle, Gemma Whelan, Timothy West and Gemma Jones have been tapped to co-star opposite Suranne Jones in Gentleman Jack (fka Shibden Hall), HBO and BBC One’s eight-episode drama series from BAFTA-winning writer Sally Wainwright. Filming will begin next month in and around West Yorkshire and on location in Copenhagen. The series will premiere on BBC One in the UK.

Set in 1832 Halifax, West Yorkshire, Gentleman Jack focuses on landowner Anne Lister (Jones) and her determination to transform the fate of her faded ancestral home, Shibden Hall, by reopening the coal mines and marrying well. The story examines Anne’s relationships at home with her family, servants, tenants and industrial rivals and, most importantly, would-be wife. Based in historical fact, the real-life...