6 British box sets that are a hit with Americans
Since streaming services have opened up American audiences to a wider range of UK content, here are six fictional homegrown hits that know how to hook a big Yankee duck.
Yeah mate
The Netflix Original smash about gang beef set amongst south east London’s brutal playground world of cuss words. American audiences have been hanging on every incomprehensible jibe and scrambling online for an urban glossary of the UK’s pre-teen put-downs.
When Lewisham Primary’s crew bump into East London’s notorious Hackney Road Juniors on a school trip to the zoo, it’s the perfect venue for nine-year-old ‘New Man’ to unbox his freshest mum jokes and win over skeptical gang leader Roy. (18+, graphic cussing from the start.)
Sherbert Sunday’s Secret
Old Person’s Check Out Aisle
Comfortably-paced BBC drama set in the back room of an olde chocolate shoppe in the sleepy Welsh slate village of Llandcandi — that doubles as a secret assisted dying clinic.
Whilst Mr Sunday lightheartedly side-steps difficult questions about euthanasia, police make a grizzly discovery of missing senior citizens when a sweet-toothed detective answers a call about out-of-date nougat. (Themes of mild terminal illness and occasionally life-threatening injuries. Parental Guidance.)
Flea Street
Gritty crime drama about a lawless gang of stray cats that menaced a Birmingham street for approximately a week in 1927.
In the season climax, a local fishmonger wants to drown Tommy in the canal after he keeps wandering into his shop. Arthur is forced to confront his addiction to urinating on things he loves. (18+, strong language, cat violence.)
No phone, who dis?
Significantly low stakes reality format where 10 British singles try to work out who fancies them through a mystery text message alone, but there’s a twist: one of the texters is their own mum, waiting in the studio car park ready to take them home.
The season finale was a social media event bigger than an election result, after a technical error meant a lower league drug dealer was accidentally crowned winner after texting a contestant about his ‘smelliest gear yet’. (15+, Drug-related texting.)
An Embarrassment of Wings
Big budget masterpiece drama set during the interwar years, around the first aristocratic family in the UK to run a fried chicken business from a stately home.
It’s the day of Lady Oakham’s wedding, and pantry staff are attempting to navigate a missing delivery of 10,000 wings to the wedding barn. Little does anyone know, the bride is hiding an orphaned family of chicks in her trail and is planning an audacious escape. (12+, moderate animal slaughter.)
Sandwich Artist of the Year
The food competition that has had some Hollywood A-listers gripped pits the most gifted meat trappers in Britain against each other.
Disgruntled pitta chefs and a hoagie artisan lost out to a giant hollowed-out cob that replicated Christ’s betrayal at the Last Supper from a surprise Milanese winner. Sandwich chiefs have faced an online backlash from the transubstantiation community insisting the miniature corned beef Jesus did not constitute an edible filling.
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By @TruePanks. Special thanks to Scott Brooks.
