From McMafia to Britannia: the best TV to look forward to in 2018
Presumably now that 2017 is over and done with, you've already caught up on all the best TV from last year and are ready to get started on 2018's offerings. No? Well, here's the all the most exciting TV coming up anyway.
McMafia
Grantchester’s James Norton stars in this glossy new drama series as a suave, successful man who is forging his path in London, away from his Russian mafia family – at least until a personal tragedy pulls him back into the fold.
BBC One, from 1 January
Inside No 9
Just as The League of Gentlemen revival ends, creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton are back again with the fourth series of their brilliant black comedy anthology. It kicks off with an excellent comedy of errors set on floor 9 of a London hotel, told in rhyming couplets.
BBC Two, 2 January
Girlfriends
Those who enjoyed Love, Lies & Records will be looking forward to this new drama, which is the latest from writer Kay Mellor. Phyllis Logan, Miranda Richardson and Zoë Wanamaker star as three older women whose childhood friendship is rekindled when Mickey, one of their husbands, suddenly dies – that is, until questions start to be asked about what exactly happened to him.
ITV, 3 January
Derry Girls
Lisa McGee’s sprightly comedy is set in Northern Ireland towards the end of the Troubles in the Nineties and provides a welcome antidote to the standard depictions. The heroine is 16-year-old Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), who’s more concerned with navigating school than with the bombs that make up her everyday life.
Channel 4, 4 January
Hard Sun
Written by Neil Cross, the creator of Luther, this new crime series is set five years before the apocalypse and follows a pair of chalk-and-cheese detectives (played by Agyness Deyn and Jim Sturgess) attempting to maintain order as the event approaches.
BBC One, 6 January
Next of Kin
This slick new drama series stars Archie Panjabi and Jack Davenport as a high-flying couple: she a GP, he a political lobbyist. However, their family life is put at risk when her brother dies while working abroad for a medical charity, causing a string of buried secrets to come to light.
ITV, 8 January
Kiri
While we continue to wait for the third series of Happy Valley, Sarah Lancashire stars in this wrought drama from Jack Thorne about a social worker who arranges for Kiri, a young girl who’s about to be adopted, to have an unsupervised visit with her grandparents and then disappears.
Channel 4, 10 January
Britannia
The man behind this year’s West End smash The Ferryman, lauded playwright Jez Butterworth makes his first foray into television with this decidedly trippy-seeming drama series that promises to be quite unlike any historical drama before it. It stars David Morrissey, Kelly Reilly and Zoe Wanamaker and is set in 43AD, during the Roman invasion of Britain.
Sky Atlantic, 18 January
Call the Midwife
The perennially popular period medical drama is set to return for its seventh series.
BBC One, January
Altered Carbon
Based on the popular sci-fi novel by Richard K Morgan, this thriller is set 300 years in the future in a world where, as consciousnesses can be digitised and interchanged, death is no longer permanent. Joel Kinnaman stars as Takeshi Kovacs, the last remaining soldier from a band of elite interstellar warriors, whose mind was imprisoned for centuries. James Purefoy plays the man who rescues him, in exchange for solving a murder.
Netflix, 2 February
Mum
This gentle family sitcom starring Lesley Manville as a new widow charmed viewers when it arrived in 2016, and has been recommissioned for a further two series.
BBC Two, February
Requiem
This psychological thriller follows a young cellist (Lydia Wilson) whose life is turned upside down by the unexpected suicide of her mother. But there’s a mysterious supernatural element, too, when she resolves to find some answers and travels to a small Welsh town that is still suffering from the trauma of a toddler that went missing 23 years ago.
BBC One, February
Collateral
Carey Mulligan stars as a hard-bitten detective determined to solve the seemingly senseless murder of a pizza delivery man in this crime thriller from playwright David Hare. The events of four days are told over four episodes, and draw in John Simm’s politician David, his unpredictable ex-girlfriend (Billie Piper) and a compassionate vicar (Nicola Walker), whose secret lover is the only witness to the crime.
BBC Two, February
Bliss
David Cross, the actor, writer and director best known for his role in the cult comedy Arrested Development, brings his latest comedy project to British TV. Stephen Mangan stars as a travel writer who is living a double life, with two sets of wives (played by Heather Graham and Jo Hartley) and children who are oblivious to each other’s existence.
Sky Atlantic, February
Trauma
Doctor Foster creator Mike Bartlett posits an A&E doctor’s worst nightmare in this new thriller series. Adrian Lester plays Dr Allerton, who fails to save a 15-year-old stabbing victim. The boy’s father, played by John Simm, blames Allerton and sets about uncovering every aspect of the medic’s life.
ITV, February
Civilisations
In 1969, Kenneth Clark produced a landmark documentary series on western art that thrilled audiences. Now historians Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga aim to bring an even more far-reaching account to a new generation. They begin with 40,000-year-old art found on cave walls before travelling across six continents.
BBC Two, March
Troy: Fall of a City
From The Night Manager writer David Farr comes this epic, big-budget new drama series. Louis Hunter and Bella Dayne star as Paris and Helen, the two lovers whose affair sparks a war between Greece and Troy and brings an empire to its knees.
BBC One, month TBA
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
After scoring a hit with the dramatic retelling of the OJ Simpson trial, American Crime Story will turn its attention to the 1997 murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez).
BBC Two, month TBA
Cunk on Britain
For those still mourning this year's cancellation of Wipe (simply because writer Charlie Brooker was too busy to do it), take comfort in the return of his comedy creation Philomena Cunk, played to perfection by Diane Morgan. In this spoof documentary series, Cunk will drolly examine the history of this fair island.
BBC Two, month TBA
Marcella
The dark crime drama will return for a second run, along with its title star Anna Friel. It will see the troubled detective brought in to help solve the murder of a schoolboy, who's body is found encased in a wall. Nigel Planer and Keith Allen also join the cast.
ITV, month TBA
Lee & Dean
This new comedy series features up-and-coming stars (Mark O’Sullivan and Miles Chapman) as a pair of builders living in Stevenage. The show is entirely improvised, and rather unconventional, as it follows these two best pals as they go about their lives.
Channel 4, month TBA
Vanity Fair
The BBC has aired adaptations of William Makepeace Thackeray’s classic 1848 novel four times in the past, latterly in 1998. Now it's ITV's turn, with Olivia Cooke cast as Becky Sharp and Tom Batemen as Captain Rawdon Crawley. It's set to be a starry production indeed, with Suranne Jones, Michael Palin, Martin Clunes, Frances de La Tour, Simon Russell Beale and Claire Skinner also among the supporting stars.
ITV, month TBA
White Dragon
John Simm stars in this crime thriller written by newcomers, Mark Denton and Johnny Stockwood, and produced by established producers Harry and Jack Williams (Rellik, Liar). Simm stars as a professor whose wife dies while working in Hong Kong. As he tries to get to the bottom of what happened to her, he discovers that the Chinese detectives are holding something back.
ITV, month TBA
The Split
Writer Abi Morgan returns to the small screen for the first time since 2015's brilliant crime drama River. Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan and Meera Syal star in this new drama about “modern marriage and the legacy of divorce”, with Walker playing a divorce lawyer who handles Syal's character's split from her multi-millionaire husband.
BBC One, month TBA
City in the City
This adaptation of China Miéville's mind-bending fantasy novel stars David Morrissey as Inspector Tyador Borlú. Set in the fictional European city-state of Besźel, Borlú investigates the murder of a foreign student and gets pulled into the political turmoil between Besźel and its "twin city" of Ul Qoma.
BBC Two, month TBA
Bodyguard
Line of Duty's writer Jed Mercurio and former star Keeley Hawes reunite for this new political drama. She stars as Home Secretary Julia Montague, who is assigned a heroic war veteran (played by Richard Madden) as a bodyguard. But when it comes to politics, the pair have very different opinions.
BBC One, month TBA
Clean Break
Sheridan Smith stars as a cleaner with a gambling addiction in this drama series from newcomer writer Mark Marlow. But her job cleaning an office gives her access to insider stock marketing information – which could be the answer to her debt problems.
ITV, month TBA
Wanderlust
This intriguing drama series will see Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh explore marriage and family life. Collette plays a Joy, a therapist who is trying to keep the spark in her marriage alive after her husband suffers a cycling accident.
BBC One, month TBA
Patrick Melrose
David Nicholls is adapting the semi-autobiographical novels of Edward St Aubyn for this new Sky Atlantic series starring none other than Benedict Cumberbatch as the troubled playboy. Each episode will be based on a different novel and will span from the South of France in the Sixties, to New York in the Eighties, to the UK in the early Noughts.
Sky Atlantic, month TBA
Maniac
Netflix is once again teaming up with director Cary Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation) for this dark comedy created by Patrick Somerville. Emma Stone and Jonah Hill will star in this remake of a Norwegian dark-comedy series about an institutionalized man who lives a fantasy life in his dreams.
Netflix, month TBA
The Barking Murders
There will soon come a time where not a single major crime has been untouched by screen drama. And it's Stephen Port's multiple rapes and murders that is next to be turned into a miniseries. Jeff Pope – who has also previously drawn inspiration from (deep breath) the executioner Albert Pierrepoint, the wife of Ronnie Biggs, the disappearance of Lord Lucan, the murderer Malcolm Webster, the Hatton Garden robbery, and the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones – and Neil McKay – whose work includes The Moorside (about the kidnap of Shannon Matthews) and Appropriate Adult (about the West murders) – are collaborating to write this dramatisation of the crimes and 2016 conviction of Port, who met his male victims on online dating sites.
BBC One, month TBA