Predicting Netflix's Next 10 Smash Hit Shows
5. The English Game
Released: March 2020
When it comes to British projects, the jewel in Netflix's shiny tiara is, well, The Crown. So, it's reasonable to assume that their next Brit hit may be cut from the same cloth: a glossy period drama that drills down into an icon of British life.
How about the creator of Downton Abbey writing a drama about class conflict during the early popularisation of football in the nineteenth century, then? That definitely ticks all those Britishness boxes for audiences both at home and abroad.
Predictably billed as "Downton Abbey with football", this six-part miniseries from Julian Fellowes contrasts Lord Arthur Kinnaird (Kingsman's Edward Holcroft), football's first aristocratic superstar and winner of five FA Cups in the 1870s and 80s, and Fergie Suter (Sunshine On Leith's Kevin Guthrie), a working-class Glaswegian who became one of the first professional players in a still strictly amateur era.
Due on Netflix this week, The English Game could not be more perfectly timed for football fans suddenly bereft of their beautiful game with the abrupt suspension of the regular season. It can be binged on Sunday afternoon in the absence of the usual 4 o'clock kick-off on Sky.