Five things to watch this weekend

The Last of Us — Showmax

Based on a critically acclaimed 2013 post-apocalyptic adventure game hailed for its attention to character detail and narrative, The Last of Us is a survivalist drama set in the wake of a global fungal infection pandemic that leaves its victims as bloodthirsty zombies.

Created by the game’s developer Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin, the series stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, an ordinary working man from Texas whose attempts to keep his daughter and brother safe at the onset of the pandemic end in tragedy. Twenty years later a much more cynical and self-interested Joel is forced out of the smuggling black market niche he’s carved for himself in Boston and into the terrifying postapocalyptic US landscape, in the company of a troublesome teenager named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) on a journey that will test them to their limits and forge a bond that may just save them both and the world at large.

With a satisfying focus on character, slow storytelling and grim atmosphere, HBO’s big bet looks promising after its much watched and critically acclaimed debut this week. New episodes are added weekly on Mondays.    

This England — Showmax

The creative talents of British maverick director Michael Winterbottom and Sir Kenneth Branagh’s eerily spot-on performance as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson can’t quite save this uneven attempt to dramatically recreate a very recent period in British history that perhaps needs a little more time to be digested properly. Branagh delivers some impressive Shakespeare monologues as he plays Johnson in a drama that tries to examine the reasons for his administration’s failure to swiftly and decisively act at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences for ordinary British citizens.

Break Point — Netflix

Netflix takes the successful formula of behind-the-scenes sports documentary it applied to Formula One drivers and applies it to the high-pressure world of professional tennis — with mixed results. Focusing on the new generation of tennis superstars making their way up the ladder to scale the heights occupied for so long by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic, the show does its best to try and convince that tennis is as exciting as Formula One. In all fairness to the very talented athletes who have devoted their lives to tennis glory, it’s just not quite as engaging and most of them are just too well behaved to make for gripping television.

Stonehouse — Britbox

Matthew Macfayden stars as forgotten but absurdly conniving 1970s Labour Party MP John Stonehouse. Stonehouse, a charismatic and rising star of Harold Wilson’s cabinet, was a complicated figure whose greed and ambition saw him spy for the Czechoslovakian government, engage in wide-ranging financial fraud, and have an affair with his secretary. He then tried to escape from under it all by faking his own death by drowning, off the Florida coast in 1974, before he was discovered alive in Australia, where authorities at first mistook him for the more famous Lord Lucan. A story so bizarre and full of unexpected twists and turns that it could only be true. It’s handled with a mix of absurdity and empathy thanks to strong performances and strong writing that quietly makes some pertinent points about the moral slipperiness of politicians in the wake of the Tory government’s recent shenanigans.

The Menu — Disney Plus

Ralph Fiennes has a whale of a time playing a sadistic, psychotic chef in this macabre horror thriller about a group of wealthy diners who make a pilgrimage to a world-renowned restaurant on an island; only to find that the meal they’re about to savour may be their very bitterly curated last supper.