Our new favourite …
Boxset
What’s it called?
Year Of The Rabbit
What’s it about?
Imagine a knowingly stupid and expletive-ridden mash-up of Ripper Street, Sherlock Holmes, The Elephant Man and Murder In Successville and you have a decent approximation of this anarchic costume drama from Channel 4 which follows drunken, loutish Inspector Rabbit as he chases down criminals in Victorian era London. Helping (and occasionally hindering) his pursuit of wrong ’uns are the enthusiastic but clueless Wilbur Strauss, a Cambridge-educated toff in a bowler hat, the sassy Mabel Wisbech, daughter of foul-mouthed police chief Hugh Wisbech, and John Merrick, aka the Elephant Man.
Who’s in it?
Toast Of London star Matt Berry (also to be seen in BBC Two’s ace vampire comedy What We Do In The Shadows) plays Rabbit while Alun Armstrong has the role of Hugh Wisbech. Fast-rising comedian Susan Wokoma is Mabel and Freddie Fox plays Strauss. Look out too for fellow comedians Paul Kaye (as Rabbit’s nemesis DI Tanner of the Yard) and Sally Phillips (as a pan-sexual Bulgarian aristocrat), and episode one ends with a cameo that promises even more fun ahead – Keeley Hawes as the mysterious Lydia, a Moriarty-esque figure with a network of street urchins at her command.
Best bits so far?
Any scene with Wokoma in it.
Where can I find it?
It’s screening weekly on Channel 4 but all six episodes are available to stream on Now TV and it's released on DVD in July.
Fun fact …
Writers Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley were at school together and have collaborated on TV shows including Veep, Black Books and those David Walliams adaptations you say you won’t watch at Christmas but always end up enjoying.
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