There is a moment near the start of Gentleman Jack Fleabag in petticoats” is not necessarily a bad pitch, but do they have to be so blatant? The other similarities are hardly well disguised. Lister is a sharp, witty brunette with cheekbones that could cut steak; too brilliant for her family but far from at ease in the world.
The series, a co-production between the BBC and HBO, has been created by Yorkshire’s own Sally Wainwright, who previously gave us Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax , with a team of female writers, producers and directors. Anne Lister was a real-life industrialist and landowner, and the programme is based on her diaries, which were written in code. Lister was gay at a time when women were expected to stay indoors, marry and breed, and certainly not run the family business or have affairs with other women.
As the first episode begins, Anne’s family are awaiting her return to the family seat from a love affair gone wrong. Her situation seems to be understood, even if it is not explicitly discussed. Anne enters like a tornado, setting out to collect the rent on the family’s properties and generally grabbing bulls by horns. It’s the dawn of the railway era, coal is about to become the old oil, and the Listers are sitting on great heaps of the stuff. Anne’s manner winds people up the wrong way, not least her rather priggish sister, Marian (an excellent Gemma Whelan, released from her role as Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones ).
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BBC
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BBC/7Wonder/Jaimie Gramston
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Jonny Ashton/ITV
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Nick Wall
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Channel 4
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Channel 4
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BBC
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BBC/Lookout Point/Laurence Cendrowicz
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BBC/European Council Newsroom
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Channel 4
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PA
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Netflix
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BBC/ITV Studios
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BBC
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AFP/Getty
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Channel 4
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PA
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Peter Marley
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BBC/Two Brothers/Luke Varley
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BBC
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Netflix
"Plausibility is a spectrum; Bodyguard became ridiculous but Line of Duty stays just the right side, and as usual there is more plot in an hour than in whole series of other programmes. As well as being gripping entertainment, Line of Duty has become an effective examination of the relationship between the state and the individual. The shadowy government forces are elected; the organised crime gangs are fuelled by the drug trade. The police are there to save us from ourselves but can only do it if they are subjected to constant scrutiny. It’s exhausting work, policing the police."
BBC
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Dean Rogers/Channel 4
'Good Omens is a hugely enjoyable, imaginative premiere, as close to Pratchett’s vision as anyone could have dared dream. And while the melancholy tone may not be for everyone, fans of the book will surely be sated.'
Amazon Prime
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BBC
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BBC/BBC America
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HBO
"Season three's knuckle-whitening finale is far less disappointing than the last."
Hulu
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Channel 4
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Channel 4
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HBO
"In Kathy Burke’s All Women on Channel 4, the unapologetic, effing-and-blinding, salt-of-the-earth actor meets lots of different women – from nuns to reality stars – to understand what it means to be a member of the fairer sex, so to speak, in 2019."
Channel 4
"So here we have an intriguing, but rather flawed sort of Big Brother thriller set in our contemporary world of digital snooping, near constant surveillance and (a topical touch) widespread use of facial recognition technology."
BBC/Heyday Films/Nick Wall
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Netflix
"Criminal uses its small canvas to ask big questions. The focus on these intricate dances means that after a while we begin to question the idea of objective truth, as well as the facts at hand. I have no idea if it is a realistic depiction of detective work, but it makes for gripping drama."
Netflix
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Pro Co
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BBC/Mammoth Screen
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Sky Atlantic
"Sarah Phelps’s adaptation of crime writer Tana French’s novels finds two detectives trying to solve the murder of a young girl, with plenty of twists and turns."
BBC
"Romance is complicated, cathartic and messy, regardless of age or circumstance. But such uncomfortable realities are swept beneath the rug in John Carney’s rigorously whimsical new Amazon series. Modern Love is adapted from a New York Times column (it also spawned a hit podcast) and is as much a valentine to a fantasia vision of Manhattan as it is a dissection of the human heart."
Amazon Studios
"Damon Lindelof’s version of the beloved graphic novel is a compelling demonstration of what can happen when source material is treated with sensitivity and imagination."
HBO
"Arriving in the wake of Marvel’s Black Panther, the film highlights the links between the saga of the real-life Agoji women, who fought in the former Kingdom of Dahomey (located in modern-day Benin), and the all-women comic-book world protectors known as Dora Milaje."
Channel 4
"The writer Jack Thorne says his latest four-part drama, which explores the aftermath of a disaster on a small community, was shaped by the Grenfell Tower fire. Rather than overcrowded west London, his takes place in Glyngolau, a fictional run-down town in Wales. A new building project, The Light, is being built on the outskirts. It’s unclear what The Light is, exactly, which is deliberate. The point is not what it is, exactly, but what it represents: 1,000 new jobs and a rare moment of economic optimism for families who have forgotten what hope feels like."
Channel 4/ Warren Orchard
"Watching Seven Worlds, One Planet, it’s hard to know what to worry about most: the future of wildlife – catastrophically imperilled by our fondness for fossil fuels, long-haul travel and convenience food – or Attenborough himself, now 93 and one of the few people that the world will listen to about the impending apocalypse. Like the species on whose behalf he speaks, his continued existence is vital for us all."
BBC/PA
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Apple/Virginia McMillian
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BBC/Bad Wolf/HBO
“It’s all well and good being different in York or Paris, but this is Halifax,” she says to Anne. “People talk, and it isn’t always very nice.”
For all her confident bluster, Anne’s heart has been broken, but she wastes little time in finding a new target, her neighbour, the heiress Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle).
The clash of old and new might have felt clunky but instead gives things a rollicking energy. If some of the other characters feel a little underdeveloped compared to Anne, that is mainly testament to Jones’s swashbuckling central turn. Her Anne seethes with indignation at being born with the “wrong desires” at the wrong time, but she is intelligent enough to know how she must behave to survive. Her single-mindedness can look blinkered, and her charisma can come across as obstinacy. My initial anxieties were misplaced. This is its own programme, a confident, smart period drama with fabulous sets and costumes, especially Anne’s top hats and black suits, and a large warm heart.
Gentleman Jack airs Sundays at 9pm on BBC1
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