Dracula

Series one, episode one
He’s played an anatomically-incorrect (but sexy) Henry VIII for the BBC. Now, Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays a dramatically inconsistent (but sexy) Dracula in this new four-part series for Sky Living. Like Rhys Meyers himself, ‘Dracula’ is perfectly pretty and pleasing on the eye. It opens with a gush of gore, before settling into a more sinister and moody pace – with the dark count taking the form of a rich American industrialist named Alexander Grayson.

After introducing himself, Gatsby-style, with a lavish party, high society is both intrigued and smitten – cue an awful solicitation by Victoria Smurfitt about enjoying the opera ‘in my box’. It’s all fashionably-filtered fun, with the requisite amount of post-‘Twilight’ sullenness and shots of that Rhys Meyers torso all present and correct. Just don’t expect a new insight into Bram Stoker’s deathless creation.