period drama

History can be measured by recurrent events, such as the Olympics and American presidential elections that come around every four years. Both, as it happens, take place again this year.

Television drama is less regularly repetitive, but adaptations of Dickens’s Great Expectations were screened by the BBC in 1959, 1967, 1981, 2011 and 2023. The lengthier interval either side of the millennium was filled by major film versions that became fixtures in the TV schedules.

With series ten premiering on Sunday 18 April and series 11 soon to start filming, Call The Midwife will now be on air until 2024.

Series 12 and 13 will consist of eight 60 minute episodes and two Christmas specials.

Creator, Writer and Executive Producer, Heidi Thomas, said: “It’s an incredible privilege to be able to look back on a decade of Call The Midwife, and yet know that our journey is still very far from over.

It’s a brave film-maker who takes on the story of the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci. Can their treatment hope to measure up to the real figure who – for starters – painted the world’s most famous canvas, designed flying machines and was a ground-breaking anatomist and scientist.

It has also been confirmed that the series will be the drama’s last, although creator and writer, Steven Knight, has hinted at a spin-off: “While the TV series will be coming to an end, the story will continue in another form.”

The story of Tommy Shelby and his notorious family’s rise to power in post-First World War Birmingham has grown to become an international phenomenon since it first aired in 2013.

Bridgerton 

Netflix 

In regency England appearances are everything and for the powerful Bridgerton family they face the constant battle between their duty and desires.

Inspired by the Julia Quinn novels, wealth, lust, betrayal and honour are navigated by those seeking to stay ahead in an English society filled with secrets and gossip. 

Famous and Fighting Crime

Monday: Channel 4, 9.00pm

New four-part series, Famous and Fighting Crime, sees Jamie Laing (Made in Chelsea) Sandi Bogle (Gogglebox), presenter Katie Piper and comic Marcus Brigstocke working as volunteer police officers.

The four celebrities are put to the test as they chase after thieves, apprehend violent suspects and intervene in a domestic abuse case amid crippling police cuts and rising crime.

The six-part series will be set in London during the climax of the Napoleonic Wars and will follow the dark secrets of upper-class households.

During the evening of the Battle of Waterloo, the Trenchards accept an invitation to an extravagant ball hosted by the Duchess of Richmond, triggering a sequence of events that lead to secrets being unravelled and devastating consequences for decades to come.

Julian Fellowes will adapt the novel alongside Downton Abbey producers Gareth Neame, Nigel Marchant and Liz Trubridge.

Though a work of fiction, the lack of clarity and misdirection from its author Joan Lindsey when giving interviews about the book, led to confusion as to its authenticity. As the places in the novel are real, the tale has since been incorporated into the very fabric of Australian folklore. There's even a statue of one of the girls, Miranda, at the Hanging Rock visitors' centre in Victoria, Australia.

The Teachers

Mrs Hester Appleyard - Headmistress
Played by Natalie Dormer

Sanditon, written just months before Austen’s death in 1817, tells the story of Charlotte Heywood, an impulsive and highly spirited young woman, and her spiky relationship with the wild and charming Sidney Parker.

After an accident sees the Heywood family transported from the rural hometown of Willingden to the up-and-coming seaside town of Sanditon, Charlotte is exposed to the intrigues of a town on the rise, and the people whose fortunes depend on its commercial success.

Vanity Fair tells the story of Becky Sharpe, a young woman attempting to claw her way out of poverty and scale the heights of English Society.

Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, Becky climbs all the way to the court of King George IV, via the Battle of Waterloo, breaking hearts and losing fortunes as she goes.

Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel) will play Thackeray’s heroine Becky Sharpe.