The SLMan Culture List: May

This new Apple TV series explores the shocking story behind a mysterious figure dubbed the ‘Con Queen,’ who impersonated the entertainment industry’s most powerful women, luring unsuspecting victims to exhaust their finances in a perverse psychological game. It’s led by veteran investigative journalist Scott Johnson and private investigator Nicole Kotsianas, who set out to uncover the identity of the Con Queen, only to discover a truth stranger than fiction. From the team behind the pop-culture phenomenon Tiger King and the acclaimed surfing docuseries 100 Foot Wave, this is a riveting three-parter.

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This new book from historian and author Sir Max Hastings focuses on Operation Biting, one of the most thrilling British commando raids of World War II – and probably the most successful. In February 1942, RAF intelligence was baffled by a newly identified radar network on the coast of Nazi-occupied Europe, codenamed ‘Würzburg’. The scientist Dr RV Jones proposed an assault to capture key components, and a company of the newly formed Airborne Forces was committed to the operation. Amid heavy snow, 120 men landed, some of them accidentally dropped almost two miles from their objective. This is the full, nail-biting story of their mission – and escape.

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In You Never Know, meet the man behind the moustache, as Tom Selleck charts his journey to the top in Hollywood. Along the way, he clears up misconceptions and shares dozens of never-told stories from all corners of his personal and professional life, from his California childhood and clueless arrival as a good-looking college jock in Hollywood to what it was like to emerge as a mega-star in his mid-30s. Selleck reveals friendships with a vivid army of A-listers (everyone from Frank Sinatra to Sam Elliott), paying special tribute to his mentor James Garner of The Rockford Files, who believed, like Selleck, that TV protagonists are far more interesting when they have rough edges. He also tips his hat to the American western and the scruffy band of actors and directors who helped define the classic genre where Selleck has repeatedly found a happy home.

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This new six-part series is based on the international bestselling novel by Heather Morris, which itself is based on the real-life story of Lali Sokolov, a Jewish prisoner who was tasked with tattooing ID numbers on prisoners' arms in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during World War II. Played by Jonah Hauer-King, Lali soon meets Gita (Anna Próchniak). Under constant guard from volatile Nazi SS officer Baretzki (Jonas Nay), Lali and Gita are determined to keep each other alive. Around 60 years later, Lali (now portrayed by Harvey Keitel) meets aspiring writer Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey). Recently widowed, Lali finds the courage to tell the world his story. In recounting his past to Heather, Lali finally confronts the traumatic ghosts of his youth and relives his memories of falling in love in the darkest of places.

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Set in 1980s New York, Eric follows the desperate search of a father after his nine-year-old son disappears on the way to school. Vincent (Benedict Cumberbatch), creator of the hugely popular children’s television show Good Day Sunshine, struggles to cope with the loss of Edgar. Full of self-loathing and guilt around Edgar’s disappearance, he clings to his son’s drawings of a blue monster puppet named Eric, convinced that if he can get Eric on TV then Edgar will come home. As Vincent’s progressively destructive behaviour alienates his family, his work colleagues and the detectives trying to help him, it’s Eric – a delusion of necessity – who becomes his only ally.

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The Big Cigar is a new limited series led by André Holland (Moonlight, The Knick). Based on the magazine article of the same name by Joshuah Bearman, The Big Cigar tells the fascinating true story of Hollywood revolution meeting social revolution. It’s a wild caper about Black Panther founder Huey P. Newton escaping from the FBI to Cuba with the assistance of famed producer Bert Schneider in an impossibly elaborate plan – involving a fake movie production – that goes wrong every way it possibly can.

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