Well, hello and welcome to Binge Watch, the podcast where we take a look at the hottest new tv and film releases on streaming television platforms.

I'm Hannah Fernando, the group editor of Woman and Woman and Home magazine.

And I'm Ian McEwan, writer on tv and Satellite Week, TV Times and what's on tv, magazines.

And today we're looking at the new releases that will be available on Friday the 18 October 2024, including Lenny James as a dapper London pensioner leading a double life in the new BBC drama Mister Loverman and David Tennant and Alex Hassell waging war in rivals, Gilly Cooper's racy tale of money, lust and power on Disney.

And we'll also be checking out the australian version of british comedy the Office.

Yes, you heard that right on prime Video and romantic drama.

So long, Marianne.

About singer songwriter Leonard Cohen and his muse on ITVX.

But first, Ian, what is in the news?

Charlie Brooker's dystopian Netflix anthology series Black Mirror is set to return for a 7th series next year with an all star cast including Peter Capaldi and Paul Giamatti.

What else is in the news, Hannah?

Well, this looks good because in prime video comedy, Jack in time for Christmas, which will air this December, Jack Whitehall will embark on an epic mission to get home for the festive season, with help, of course, from none other than Mister Christmas himself, Michael Buble and Rebel Wilson.

Absolutely shameless.

We've got a good selection this week, I would say, and we're going to start off on BBC One and BBC iPlayer with a new drama series which starts with a double bill.

It's called Mister Lover man.

And here's a clip.

You is a homosexual barrier.

I know homosexual.

I am a Barry sexual.

They think they know me.

Father of Donna and Maxine, husband of Carmel.

What happened to us, Barry?

50 years living a double life.

You are a cheat, Barry.

But not in the way that she thinks.

So this is going to drop as a box set on the iplayer on BBC One.

You're going to get two episodes a week on a Monday night.

It's adapted from the novel by Booker Prize winning author Bernardine Evaristo.

And I have to say it's very, very good.

So it stars Lenny James, who's been in things like Line of Duty.

And he plays Barrington Jedediah Walker, also known as Barry.

And he's a snappily dressed antiguan born pensioner who is living in Hackney.

And he is married to Carmel, played by Sharon D.

Clark.

But his big secret is that he's having an affair and has been for a very long time with his best friend Morris, played by Arianne Bakari, who was in his dark materials.

So, yeah, that's the setup.

And it.

It flashes back in time.

It goes all the way back to the sort of antiguan childhoods, time periods in between, as we follow the sort of progress of the marriage.

And Morris was married at one stage as well.

And we also find out in different episodes, we find out the backstory of Carmel.

And then Carmel also goes back to Antigua on her own.

Then there's also.

There are two daughters.

We find out a bit more about them.

One of them is a single parent and has a son.

So, yeah, there's plenty going on.

It's very much a domestic drama.

There's lots of these great scenes around the kitchen table in the Walker household and it touches on.

Obviously it touches on things like homophobia.

I mean, it's really nicely played, it's really well written, well adapted.

And you find that kind of your sympathies shift as the series progresses because, you know, you start.

I think you start off feeling a bit sorry for Barry.

His wife seems like a real nag and a real kind of very religious and her friends are quite homophobic.

But then as.

As it continues and you find out more about kind of the promise he made to Morris, which he never fulfilled and Morris feels trapped.

Morris kind of wants to come out.

Then you find out more about Carmel and what she's sort of given up to stay in this marriage.

It's.

Yeah, I think it's really, really well done, a great adaptation of a fantastic book.

So I would thoroughly recommend it.

What did you think, Hannah?

Well, I hadn't read the book, but I kind of want to now and do it the other way around.

But I think you're right.

There are some big sort of topics here, aren't there, that are covered and the kind of the homophobia surrounding his relationship is.

You know, I suppose these days, although things should.

Are still not where they should be, that there's less of that.

I certainly.

I feel the sense that there is and it's much more accepted.

Rightly so.

So it sort of opens your eyes a bit on that front.

And you know how difficult this kind of.

This path was, if you like.

And I know what you mean.

I quite often find this with.

With series like this, wherever you start, kind of feeling really you don't like someone, or even if you do like them and it changes, you know, through.

As it goes on.

And this.

Absolutely this does happen.

And it's so nuanced, because every time you sort of think, oh, you feel sorry for this person or that person, there's a reason why they're.

And isn't that always the case?

There's a reason why someone generally behaves like they do or they're unhappy or it's not working.

I think it's really.

I was interested immediately.

You know, it captures you immediately.

And I think it's a very good adaptation.

So I haven't read the book in the first instance.

So whether you would, if you've read the book, it does fairly represent it.

That I wouldn't know.

But coming to it sort of completely like I have, I just thoroughly enjoyed.

What I've seen over on Disney.

Plus, a very eagerly anticipated series.

Another adaptation of a famous book.

Yes, it's rivals.

And here's a clip.

Tony Baddie.

If you don't start spending some of.

That fortune making decent television, you're gonna lose your business.

Rupert Campbell black champion showjumper put out to pasture.

It's an arrogant black.

Have we got a poem?

Makes life much more exciting.

Oh, I do like a little bit of Jilly Cooper and her raciness.

And that's exactly what this is.

This is her rivals as one of her best selling novels.

And, I mean, if you know Gilly Cooper's work, you're going to absolutely love this, because it completely delves into that world that she kind of involves you in, which is backstabbing, bed hopping, good looking men, good looking women and all the bad things happening.

But what interests me about this one particularly is that this kind of focuses, say, if you read the book, you'll know between the long simmering feud between these two men.

So one is the tv boss, Lord Tony Baddingham, which is played by the brilliant David Tennant.

And then you've got a very handsome Tory MP, Rupert Campbell Black, played by Alex Hassel.

And no matter how rich you are, it seems you always want more, or you could always be jealous of somebody else.

And that's exactly what happens here.

And it's so you see an insight into their lives completely in terms of how much money they've got and the power that they will use to execute what they want to do to suit their narrative and exactly what they want.

And Tony, he's part of this media empire.

And it focuses on ITV because ITV used to be split into sort of all different fractions, didn't it?

And you kind of see behind the doors of that, too, the curtain kind of drops on that, too.

And he's completely motivated by wealth and power and is so completely jealous of his rival Rupert.

And he has got this media empire.

He's got the option and a platform in which to, you know, try and get the revenge on the man that he, you know, that he really dislikes, because essentially he has it all.

And, you know, will he do that?

Well, of course, you know, if anyone reads.

Has read the book again, you will know what happens.

But it's.

It's.

I think it's really well done, actually, because it's.

There's.

There's lights and shades throughout this.

So whilst there's some sort of real horrible treachery between people and, you know, particularly the bed hopping on the bed hopping front and the idea that you want to bring people down at the same time, there are sort of some really lovely backdrops throughout this.

You know, there's, you know, the countryside and kind of some of these amazing parties that you imagine happen.

But do they really happen?

I hope they happen.

And it kind of.

I think when you read a book, like, well read of any jilly Coopers, you've got this.

Your imagination runs wild.

And I think that's probably the hurdle they had to get over with this.

And they've certainly got, you know, a cast list to do that, haven't they?

With, as I say, David Tennant.

You've got Alex Hassel, Aidan the brilliant Aiden Turner.

Don't worry, you'll get to see us just again.

And, you know, it's.

They've done it well because I think it could not work if you did it properly.

Because books like this, they.

Your imagination runs wild.

You've already got a picture in your mind of what this would look like and suddenly then, you know, it's on the big screen.

So I thought.

I thought it was done very well.

Very enjoyable.

What do you think, Ian?

I think I'm gonna be out of step with public opinion on this one.

I mean.

Oh, yes.

Another drama series set in the eighties.

Good Lord.

And, yeah, lots of eighties hits.

Soft rock, eighties fashions and hair.

I've not read any gilly Cooper my view of this and I think it's been well received generally.

To me, it's really kind of overcooked.

It's almost caricature ish.

The characters are really two dimensional.

It's kind of cartoonish, really.

It's like a throwback to those really kind of glossy, soapy dramas like Dallas and Dynasty.

It's almost like a parody of itself.

And there's a lot of over acting in it just because of what the characters are like and what the script is like.

So, yeah, I really wasn't a fan at all.

And it's almost kind of carry on ish, all those kind of.

Remember those sort of sex comedies from the 1970s?

That's sort of how the nudity and the sex are treated.

So I didn't care about the tv franchise plotline at all.

So, I mean, I quite enjoyed episode one.

I liked Catherine Parkinson's character.

Um, you got Danny Dyer in there with a dreadful moustache.

There's quite a few moustaches in this.

Um, I thought Aidan Turner was good, actually, as the.

As the sort of very abrasive chat show host.

And my former upstairs neighbor Rufus Jones features in it as a Tory politician.

So it's not for me.

But I think it's going to be a massive hit.

And I know that, you know, a lot of people love Gilly Cooper books.

I've never read any and I'm sure they'll enjoy this.

So, yeah, it's not for me, but I'm not saying I don't recommend it because I think it's, you know, there's plenty to enjoy.

We move across to ITVX for yet another new drama series, arriving on Thursday the 17 October.

It's called so long, Marianne.

And here's a clip.

You've all heard my song.

Suzanne.

I brought the man who wrote that great song, leonard Cohen.

I heard of a man who says.

Words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name.

Her name is Marianne.

Leonard.

Women give themselves to him.

I am married to somebody else.

I have his child and I have nothing.

So I just wonder what you want.

Eight episodes to this one, Hannah.

And it is all about canadian singer songwriter Leonard Cohen, who wrote Hallelujah, didn't he?

Which has been covered many, many times by many famous artists.

Bird on a wire, Solong, Marianne.

And it's about his relationship with a norwegian woman called Marianne, played by Thea Sophie Loch.

Nice.

That's tricky to say, isn't it?

And who inspired the track so long, Marianne?

And it stars Alex Wolf, who I know from the horror movie hereditary.

He was superb.

That was kind of his breakthrough role.

He was superb as.

As the young lad in that.

If you've not seen it, it's on Netflix.

It's absolutely terrifying.

Really well done.

And he's great as Cohen.

And basically he wants to be a writer.

Basically, he really wants to be a novelist, I guess.

And he goes to the greek island of Hydra in 1960.

And it's a really kind of bohemian group of expat kind of artists and writers live there.

Just makes you think, God, I wish I was there.

It looks absolutely great.

So, yeah, he arrives there and Marianne is there with her husband, who's a writer called Alex, played by Jonas Strand Gravli.

And he's not very nice and he's not very faithful and he's not very considerate.

And they have a young son and then kind of.

Yeah.

Cohen and Marianne get together and I don't know if you remember, but Nick Broomfield, when he was very young, he had a liaison with.

With Marianne, I believe, on Hydra.

And if you saw his documentary, I arrived on Hedra and I got to know Marianne on the greek island.

Anyway, you have a new career ahead of you, my friend.

That's my Broomfield impersonation.

So, yeah, this is really good.

I've only seen episode one, so we haven't got to the point, I mean, Cohen, he didn't become a writer.

He became, as we know, a singer songwriter.

And we haven't got to the point where we see him playing and singing his songs.

But I gather that Woolf does this superbly.

And I think he's really well cast in this.

Yeah.

So.

Well, I absolutely loved it, to be honest.

And I am a Cohen fan, so great subject for me for this drama.

And I've really enjoyed what I've seen so far.

What did you think, Hannah?

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, I'm not.

I mean.

Alleluia.

I know.

Of course I do.

I wouldn't say that I'm a massive kind of Coen fan, but as with all of these kind of things, you learn things, don't you, about the person, about their life and kind of what led them to where they are.

And I don't know, it's quite.

It's a bit of an eye opener, isn't it?

From what we've seen so far?

It's an eye opener.

The whole relationship with Marianne, the, you know, what went on behind that.

You know, the kind of the love that was kind of the deep love that they had for one another and probably the person that really inspired him and the music that he wrote.

So I thought it was very.

From what I've seen so far, it's very interesting, kind of, again, fills in gaps.

So, you know, the music, you hear it, you know, I think it was most recently sung by someone on the X Factor, even.

Hallelujah.

So, you know, it's in everybody's.

Every generation will know that song, but you just don't really know the real artist behind it.

And I think this kind of, this shows you that.

Well, we're going to finish with some comedy over on Prime Video.

Arriving on Friday the 18 October.

It's the office Australia.

And here's a clip.

People ask me, how can I become a great boss?

And the answer is having a happy staff that love you.

This is a proper hey char nightmare.

As of today, we are all back in the office full time.

What?

That's not good news.

Gosh, it feels like so many years, doesn't it, Ian?

Since the office kind of landed, it's just, it feels really old.

And the idea that there's a new comedy kind of almost echoing what we saw so many years ago, it's kind of weird.

But actually this works really quite, really quite well because it's an eight part series.

It's set down under, as we said, and they've kind of modernized it to a degree because even though it's even back in the day when the office was on, it was still draconian in its approach to staff and wasn't acceptable in modern day practice.

But this is kind of modernized itself again because it opens with the office, the boss, who in this instance is a woman.

So that's the first time we've had that.

That's really funny.

And actually quite a big thing for her to do, I think, actually take on that role because the spotlight is on and it starts with her trying to deal with, trying to keep the office open in the modern day of everyone wanting to work from home.

So they've kind of modernized the, you know, the way in here, which of course, you know, most offices are doing.

Most offices can be quite bare and companies, after Covid, trying to get their staff back in.

So obviously the office only works and the dynamics only work.

And as we know, with the boss of the office, their life is that office.

So it needs to stay open even if nobody else wants it to.

And Felicity Ward plays the part of Hannah and she's, I think she is very funny.

She's got her own.

She's got her own take on it.

She's completely delusional in the same way that Ricky Gervais was in this part in terms of the way that she kind of plays the character.

And she.

There's just some.

I think there are some, from what I've seen of it so far, there are some quite laugh out loud moments.

There are some, there is some real cringe worthy, as you'd expect, moments.

I like the fact that they kind of cut and interviewed some of the staff.

They've obviously worked closely at watching what it was like originally and stuck to that to a degree because why wouldn't you?

But slightly their own twist and say having a woman as the office boss kind of immediately changes that dynamic.

And it's.

I don't know, she's.

She's in.

She is basically totally incapable in the same way that Ricky Gervais was.

So if you like the office first time round, you'll.

You'll probably.

You'll probably like this.

But of course, the american office wasn't for everybody either.

It.

It's cringey, you know, it's something you can do the washing up while you're.

While you're watching it, I'd say.

What do you think, Ian?

Well, as well as the american remake starring Steve Carell, which many people would argue, including myself, was better than the british series, and it ran for a very long time, the office has been remade in Germany, South America, Chile and Finland.

So in a way, it's on a bit of a hiding to nothing, this one, because if you've seen.

You're probably going to have seen the british and the american one, most likely, which were both absolutely superb and it's bound to be compared with them.

So I think.

I think that's challenging.

Of course it is.

However, if you hadn't seen those and you watch this, you'd think this is.

This is great.

This is really funny.

Terrific characters, good script.

What a great idea.

Say, as you say, I like the idea that they've cast it with a female boss, Hannah, played by Felicity Ward, and then in the.

The Gareth character, the equivalent of a Gareth character is also a woman.

So it's quite fun saying, oh, so that's who's playing the equivalent of so and so, you know, Tim and Dawn and whoever.

And there's a real kind of hangdog hr guy.

So they're trying to hold it all together.

So.

And again, that it's at a packaging company in Sydney called Flynnley Craddock and it's.

Its slogan is think inside the Box.

So, yeah, I would say Hannah Howard, she's a bit more kind of just scatty and silly rather than particularly.

David Brent could be quite.

Quite nasty and very self serving, wasn't he?

But in a hilarious way.

So I'd say it's a little bit softer, but I do think it's.

I do think is good.

But unfortunately, it's.

It's always going to be.

To suffer a little bit by comparison with, with the british original and the american remake, but, yeah, I think it's well worth a look.

Well, we've got to that time.

Hannah, will we find out what the heck you've been binge watching this week?

Well, Ian, I have been binge watching a couple of things, actually.

I was working late one evening, and I watched League of their own, which was just funny.

They were on tour in Mexico, and we have actually reviewed that before, so very good.

Worth a watch.

And also Malory towers.

Honestly, we all sat down as a family to watch Malory towers, and we loved it.

And they just keep dropping more and more episodes, which is great.

So, yeah, we're still working our way through as the girls get older, I.

How about you?

I have been watching the true crime drama monsters on Netflix, which is about the Menendez brothers.

So, yeah, I think last week I recommended the documentary on the same subject, but the, the drama is really good.

And it's got a terrifying turn by Javier Bardem, who's been in a Bond film.

And, of course, he was in no country for old Mendez as the boy's father.

And it's, you know, it's a shocking, shocking story.

And I think kind of the whole Menendez case, probably because of these drama.

And the documentary is back in the news headlines again, isn't it?

Now we just got time to look ahead to next week's offerings.

So what's on the agenda, Brenda?

Well, Billy Crystal will star in Apple TV's before, a terrifying psychological thriller about a troubled young boy.

Or right up my straight, Ian and Shazadh.

Lateef and Georgia Flood will star in Nautilus, which is a lavish retelling of Jules Verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea on prime Video.

So we look forward to those and much, much more.

But in the meantime, listeners.