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5 December 2018

The best TV of 2018

From Killing Eve to A Very English Scandal.

By Rachel Cooke

Succession
(Sky Atlantic) 

Jesse Armstrong’s pitch-perfect drama about a Murdoch-like figure and his ever gruesome children.

Sally4Ever
(Sky Atlantic) 

Julia Davis does Sappho in the suburbs: probably the funniest, and rudest, comedy on TV this year.

Killing Eve
(BBC One/iPlayer) 

Phoebe Waller-Bridge reinvented the serial killer drama and made a star of Jodie Comer in one fell swoop.

A Very English Scandal
(BBC Two) 

How we loved Hugh Grant in Russell T Davies’s deliciously camp drama about Jeremy Thorpe.

The Funeral Murders
(BBC Two) 

Vanessa Englen surpassed herself with this film about events in Northern Ireland in 1988. 

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Patrick Melrose
(Sky Atlantic) 

This adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s much-loved novels was drier than the driest Martini.

Inside the Foreign Office
(BBC Two) 

Yes, Minister for the age of Brexit. Director Michael Waldman deserves a prize for his eerie timing alone.

The Split
(BBC One) 

Let’s hope there’ll be a second series of Abi Morgan’s soapy, slyly feminist drama about female divorce lawyers.

Arena: Stanley and his Daughters
(BBC Four)

Francis Hanly’s extraordinary film about Stanley Spencer’s daughters was a work of art in its own right.  

Press
(BBC One) 

Thanks to Ben Chaplin’s turn as a tabloid editor, it was almost possible to forget that Mike Bartlett’s newspaper drama was rather silly.

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This article appears in the 08 Dec 2020 issue of the New Statesman, Christmas special