Shantaram — Apple TV +
After decades of aborted attempts at film adaptation, Gregory David Roberts’ best-seller Shantaram finally gets an on-screen treatment.
Charlie Hunman stars as the sprawling tale’s protagonist, Australian con-on-the-run Lindsay, who arrives in Bombay and begins a new life that will take him from the slums of the city to its prisons and forever alter his experience of the world.
The first three episodes of the 12-episode series are now available with new episodes weekly thereafter.
The Bear — Disney +
Deservedly critically acclaimed, exhaustively analysed and praised by pundits from the world of television and cuisine, creator Christopher Storer’s dark dramedy about a family-run Chicago restaurant struggling to survive the aftermath of Covid and the death of its proprietor is gripping, brilliant, grittily authentic and sometimes unbearably high tension television.
Short, sharp and immediately engaging, it’s a multilayered story about broken characters struggling to survive personal trauma. It offers a sobering vision of the high-pressure world of the restaurant business and is a lovingly crafted tribute to Chicago and the tough, no-nonsense, loyal eccentrics who call it home.
The Playlist — Netflix
A six-part dramatisation that continues the recent trend of tech start-up stories. This time the subject is the streaming giant Spotify and, despite recent questions about the service’s dubious preference for profits over morals, this fictionalised account, adapted from a 2021 book by two Swedish investigative journalists, makes for intriguing, engaging drama.
The decision to tell the story from multiple perspectives in the early days of Spotify also helps to make what could have been another dry, tech-bro story a complicated, layered drama in its own right.
Murder in Paris — Showmax
Director Enver Samuels’ multi-award-winning documentary about the life and highly publicised assassination of ANC activist Dulcie September in Paris in 1988, dedicatedly traces her journey from apartheid SA to Europe and takes a deep dive into the circumstances of her death and the many rumours that have for three decades circulated about who might have been responsible for it.
Candy — Disney +
Jessica Biel and Melanie Lynskey give committed performances that elevate this biographical crime drama just enough to keep you curious.
Biel stars as seemingly ordinary Texas housewife Candy Montgomery who was accused of the axe murder of her seemingly normal neighbour Betty Gore (Lynskey) in 1980, in a case that shocked and titillated the public.
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