Today, Sir David Attenborough turns 100, and we can’t think of too many people who deserve 100+ years more than a guy who’s spent his life helping generations learn to appreciate our natural world. People all around the UK and beyond have been wishing him well, and he shared the following pre-birthday message publicly:
“I had rather thought that I would celebrate my 100th birthday quietly, but it seems that many of you have had other ideas. I’ve been completely overwhelmed by birthday greetings from preschool groups to care home residents and countless individuals and families of all ages.
I simply can’t reply to each of you all separately, but I would like to thank you all most sincerely for your kind messages, and wish those of you who have planned your own local events tomorrow, have a very happy day.”
We love knowing he had so many kind messages to welcome him into a new century of life.
On the book front, all orders for the Father Brown-inspired Cassocks & Cobblestones Coloring Book have been shipped out, and we have a handful left in stock with more coming next week.
The British TV Streaming Guide: US Edition, Summer 2026 is on track to arrive sometime in the middle of the month, and the first printing is roughly 85-90% spoken for at this point so we have another order not far behind it. As we mentioned last week, there was an issue with the first proof copy that set it back a little from our original projection, so if you’ve decided you don’t want to wait or won’t be home, just let us know and we can get you refunded and cancelled.
What we’re…
Watching: Remarkably Bright Creatures - Strictly speaking, this is American - but with the British-American Alfred Molina voicing the octopus and Irish Colm Meaney as store owner Ethan, it’s still British Isles-adjacent. One part mystery, one part drama, it follows a widow whose life changes when she befriends an octopus at a local aquarium. It arrived on Netflix today.
Reading: A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz - A lot of people love Horowitz’s Magpie Murders and its sequels, but personally, I prefer the Hawthorne & Horowitz books. He inserts himself as a “Watson” figure alongside a former police detective, Daniel Hawthorne, and many of the books shed a bit of light on his real-life entertainment experiences. This one is the latest (it came out about a week ago), and it sees them on the set of their own adaptation… and of course, there’s a murder. The mystery of Hawthorne himself is the most compelling part of the series, and this book does a fair bit to advance that side of things.
THIS WEEK IN BRITISH TV
On BritBox, new episodes of Silent Witness, Death in Paradise, and After the Flood continue weekly. On May 6th, they added The Other Bennet Sister, which takes a look at the oft-ignored Mary Bennet (from Pride & Prejudice). On the 11th, look for season 3 of the comedy game show I Literally Just Told You.
On Acorn TV, Mondays are currently bringing us new episodes of season 19 of Murdoch Mysteries and season 12 of Brokenwood Mysteries (final episode on the 11th). May 4th brought the psychological thriller Dead & Buried, as well as the Canadian police procedural The Murders. On the 8th, they added the 2016 thriller Kaleidoscope with Toby Jones, and on the 11th, they’ll add The Island (aka An t-Eilean), a Scottish Gaelic crime drama involving a murder at a remote island estate.
On Amazon Prime Video, the finale of Good Omens premieres globally on May 13th.
On Netflix, May 4th brought the recent BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies. Legends premiered on the 7th, a period drama based on a top secret operation by Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise in the 1990s - where ordinary employees went undercover in dangerous drug gangs. On the 8th, the American film (with some British/Irish talent) Remarkably Bright Creatures premiered.
On Hulu, the 6th brought seasons 6-15 of the British reality series Made in Chelsea. On the 14th, they’ll add season 5 of the football reality series Welcome to Wrexham.
On BBC Select and BritBox Premier, The Race for Ancient Egypt in Colour arrived on the 5th, and on the 8th, they added Clash of the Superpowers: America vs. China. Season 13 of the art series Fake or Fortune premieres on the 14th.
Pre-orders are still open for the upcoming 11th edition of the British TV Streaming Guide, and we expect the first print run to arrive here in early May (with shipment the next business day). Pre-ordering guarantees your copy from the first batch - and once we have copies in stock, the pre-order discount goes away (they’ll be $17.99 instead of $14.99).
~230 pages cover 25 US-based streaming services, telling you which British TV shows are available on each and what they're about. No need to give yourself carpal tunnel clicking through endless on-screen menus.
An alphabetised index for when you know the name of the show, but not the streaming service.
Size 12 font! Even as the guide has gotten longer, we’ve avoided shrinking the text because we don’t want it to be unreadably small.
Each edition has bonus features in back. This time, we look at under-the-radar and interesting early appearances by well-known British actors.
A "Renewals & Cancellations" section that offers status updates about which shows are returning (or not).
“No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”
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