Television goes down the rabbit hole in January with a drama on the small screen that chronicles the birth of the big drama of the world outside. And what drama is that? Why what else: it’s Brexit. Talk about telling the story while we’re still struggling to see the end of it. Channel 4’s Brexit: The Uncivil War by the playwright James Graham, who seems to have sewn up modern British political drama, stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Dominic Cummings, campaign director of Vote Leave.

It’s the first of several enticing dramas promised for 2019. Following on the Brexit theme, on BBC1 Years and Years by Dr Who writer Russell T. Davies imagines the lives of a busy Manchester family over the next 15 years. We’ll see how ordinary lives are played out against the backdrop of a world with an entirely reshaped balance of power.

Kevin Sampson, who was present at Hillsborough Stadium on the day that 96 fans died in 1989, has written what looks to be a moving drama for ITV. Anne tells Anne Williams’ story, a mother from Formby who lost her son Kevin in the tragedy and, until her death in 2013, campaigned tirelessly for a new inquest, acquiring an impressive mastery of law in the process.