You must watch these TV shows

A friend alerted me to the recent children's three part drama The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, which as the name suggests is Dickensian in nature. It is set in Victorian times with a star cast of famous comedians and is a great comedy about a poor family who sell curiousities, who are conned by an evil man into going into business with him. Bent on destroying the family, the evil man proceeds to send the son to boarding school where he is beaten daily, the daughter is given a horrible governess who is only interested in her posture and will not let her see her parents and he then exposes the secret past of the mother, Mrs Secret-Past. The drama is fabulous because of the all the detail in the scripting, with fabulous one liners and satire on everything from the financial sector to the French to Cockney. I was devastated to discover there were only three episodes as this is a truly unique children's drama. The series finished at the beginning of March.

As someone who has done lots of law work experience, I was intrigued to hear of the new comedy Suits about high flying lawyers. It is far better than I expected. It presents very interesting cases including some pro bono cases, especially interesting to me because of my work as an adviser at Citizens Advice. I imagine this is partly because a client facing eviction is more dramatic than a merger between two businesses. The witty banter and the intellectual stimulation of trying to work out how the lawyers will handle the specific cases, as well as the personal life and struggles of the main character Mike (who you instantly sympathise with as he has no law qualifications and is winging the whole thing!), make this one of the most engaging and definitely the most intelligent TV sitcom I have seen. As it is American it is hard for me to know what strategy the lawyers can take as the law and legal system there is very different, but it is all the more interesting for it as I can compare the two systems. Slickly filmed, with fantastic opening music and excellent characters, this is a must watch. It is aired on Dave every Tuesday evening and you can watch it on UKTV catch up for the following week.