Taboo
BBC1

Now that the British actor Tom Hardy has become a Hollywood star, he can choose his projects – and in the lavish new eight-episode miniseries Taboo (7 January), he told a newspaper, he was offered the kind of starring role he has always wanted: part Bill Sikes, part Hannibal Lector and with a dash of Mr Darcy thrown in. Hardy’s face has the kind of handsomeness that looks permanently battered and just punched – so it is just about possible to imagine him covering all those bases.

It is 1814, and Hardy plays James Delaney, son of a rich shipping company owner. He has been missing for many years, presumed dead, but in a heavy fog, with his hood up, he rows ashore somewhere on the Thames Estuary. Hawsers creak and waves lap.

After retrieving a package buried in the mud, he mounts a white horse and gallops to London – instantly recognisable from the dome of St Paul’s shining in the sunrise. But where did the white horse come from? First he is in a rowing boat and suddenly he is on a horse. It is an early indication that it is probably best not to get too worried about details in Taboo.