Five things to watch this weekend

Donkerbos — Showmax

There’s more than a shade of the first season of True Detective to this dark Afrikaans crime thriller series from creator Nico Scheepers, but also lots of uniquely dark and unnerving atmosphere and slow-boiling intrigue to keep you watching. In a small community in the forests of Limpopo, the shocking discovery of the bodies of six children leads troubled detective Stephanie “Fanie” van Wyk down a treacherous path that will force her to confront the darkest aspects of human nature, her own personal shortcomings and the secrets that some members of the small-town community would rather keep hidden. As the investigation progresses, tension builds, suspicion casts a dark cloud on everyone and the truth may be far more horrific than they could have imagined. Excellently performed and solidly confident in its slow but hard-hitting revelation of uncomfortable truths it’s a rare local series that says much without having to spell everything out in bold, capital letters.  

Hacks Season 2 — Showmax

Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder return as television’s most assuredly bitterly funny dysfunctional comic duo in this second season, in which Smart’s acerbic veteran comedian Deborah Vance drags Einbinder’s socially sensitive young comedy writer Ava on tour. There are plenty of vicious put-downs, sly digs at the absurdities of backwater America and refreshingly few life-lesson moments on a journey that continues to prove that this is still one of the smartest comedies about.

Sr — Netflix

Robert Downey Sr may be most famous to many people as the man who gave his name to his Iron Man starring son but in the anarchic heyday of the late 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the foremost pioneers of hard-hitting counterculture satirical films such as Putney Swope and Greaser’s Palace that have achieved deserved cult status. Here, shortly before his death in 2021, the elder Downey participates in a suitably unconventional documentary in which his more famous son sits down to talk to him about his unconventional life and some of the emotional trauma that Jr’s much-publicised battle with alcohol and drugs caused during the bad old pre-Iron Man days. What emerges is a tenderly heartfelt and fittingly unusual tribute to a true cinematic maverick and a genuinely touching portrait of the relationship between father and son in the days before Sr’s fatal Parkinson’s diagnosis.

Slow Horses Season 2 — Apple TV +

Gary Oldman returns as Jackson Lamb, the uberdysfunctional leader of a group of establishment-reject MI5 agents in this second series of the hugely enjoyable adaptation of the novels of Mick Herron. When a retired MI5 agent and former colleague of Lamb’s is discovered dead — ostensibly as the result of a heart attack — the chain-smoking, serial-farting and always unorthodox Lamb is convinced that more is going on than meets the eye. When he recruits the rest of the gang to investigate, it soon becomes apparent that something rather fishy and potentially explosive is coming their way and they’d better get off their bums and do something.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover — Netflix

French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre breathes some sensual and emotionally aching life into this adaptation of DH Lawrence’s legendary naughty novel about the smouldering, passionate romance between an unhappily married aristocratic woman and her husband’s gamekeeper. Starring Emma Corrin and Jack O’Connell it’s a quietly building but erotically charged drama that pays fitting tribute to the forbidden love excitements and heartbreak of its source material.