What to stream this week: A saucy retelling of the classic Amadeus and five more picks

This week’s picks include a new take on the bitter rivalry between composers Mozart and Salieri, the tale of two cubs in a family-friendly wildlife doco and Clueless′ Alicia Silverstone leads an Irish dramedy.

Amadeus ★★★★ (Binge)

Genius cuts both ways in this earthy British period drama. The brilliance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Will Sharpe), the prodigious composer who was the Lennon and the McCartney of the late 18th century, is a wellspring of revelation and inspiration. But for Mozart’s lesser peer, Antonio Salieri (Paul Bettany), the blow-in’s gifts create only agony and uncertainty. As with Timothee Chalamet’s Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, genius demands cruel, cold sacrifice.

Like the previous Amadeus, the Milos Forman movie that won Best Picture at the 1984 Academy Awards, this limited series was adapted from Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play. Shaffer invented the rivalry between the two composers, but its mix of jealousy and longing feels authentic and contemporary. The blithely arrogant Mozart is a source of private torment to the established Salieri, culminating in the former’s controversial death.

The tone is saucy, not stuffy. Party-boy Wolfgang has “a few sharpeners” before his 1781 Vienna debut for Emperor Joseph II (Rory Kinnear), while Salieri references an opera he “released”; the British cast use their natural tones, avoiding Central European accents. Creator Joe Barton, fresh from the bloody espionage follies of Netflix’s Black Doves, mixes black comedy and high anguish. He also carves out Mozart’s wife, Constanze (Gabrielle Creevy), as a necessary alternate voice.

With Mozart’s historic opening nights as punctuation, complete with Salieri’s crushed but compelled face in the audience, the story has some familiar musical biopic traits. It’s a rise and fall tale with Mozart fulsomely indulging his appetites in public and blowing his money while defying the royal court, much to the consternation of his martinet father and former manager, Leopold (Jonathan Aris). It’s very much different century, same setbacks.

Sharpe has always been very good at impishness with a tormented underbelly, but the crucial role in Amadeus is that of Salieri. Bettany captures a villain whose machinations stem from heartbreak and disbelief: the look on Salieri’s face when he first sees an original Mozart composition, a perfect first draft in comparison to his stoic revisions, is brutal. It’s no wonder the pious Salieri renounces God – defrock me, Amadeus.

Bettany finds the depths, operatic and organic, of Salieri’s struggles, whether in the moment or as a bitter old man still trying to attach his forgotten name to Mozart’s growing posthumous legacy. “The more you listened, the more the layers presented themselves,” Salieri says of an early Mozart commission, and it’s the same watching this telling of Amadeus. Genius is a good time that ultimately spares no one.

Born To Be Wild ★★★½ (Apple TV)

This is the time of year when a family-friendly nature documentary can come in particularly handy, and Apple TV delivers with this six-part series about endangered young animals being prepared by their keepers and carers to return to the wild. Narrated with extra warmth by actor Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Paddington), the show is optimistic and endearing. The high-definition close-ups of tender faces provide hope even as the plummeting numbers quoted put these various species on endangered lists.

Starting with Sagalee, an orphaned moon bear cub in north-east India, Born To Be Wild follows the rehabilitation and nurturing overseen by dedicated human staff. About 35 minutes long, the episodes are succinct, but capture a process that, in the case of sibling cheetah cubs Kabo and Khumo, will take two years. “You can see the warmth in their eyes,” the pair’s keeper notes, and that intimate connection is what director Tom Berton-Humphreys strives for.

Whether it’s a motley crew of ring-tailed lemurs in Madagascar that have to learn how to work together to survive in the wild or a shy elephant calf that has to become assertive, the narratives provide challenges, a measure of risk (mostly surmounted), and well-composed access that eventually captures the success of these various programs. In other words, respect to the nature reserve springbok that is Kabo and Khumo’s first successful hunt.

The New Years ★★★½ (Mubi)

A global streaming platform that curates new and historical titles from across world cinema, Mubi moves into series with this 10-episode drama from Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen. Opening in 2016, the episodes are set on consecutive New Year’s Eves and chart the complicated relationship between Ana (Iria del Rio) and Oscar (Francesco Carril). If the format sounds gimmicky, the show has an unforced emotional authenticity and a strong, tactile connection between the leads. The nights are not always overtly eventful, but as they accumulate, The New Years impresses.

Haha, You Clowns ★★★½ (HBO Max)

This big-hearted, oddly specific comedy might be the most idiosyncratic addition HBO Max has made to its adult animation catalogue. Created by Joe Cappa, the show is about newly widowed television weatherman Tom Campbell (voiced by Cappa), who along with his three teenage sons (all voiced by Cappa), is trying to deal with their grief. The Campbells are big, beefy men with kind hearts and sweet rituals – this could be a 1980s sitcom – but they’re drawn with a muted colour palette and flattened features that take a little getting used to.

Irish Blood ★★★ (Stan*)

Alicia Silverstone found teenage fame with Clueless in 1995, but in the decades since, she has never truly clicked as the lead in a series. That changes with her holding-it-all-together performance in this expatriate mystery, in which Silverstone plays Fiona Fox, an American lawyer who returns to Ireland to meet her absent father and instead finds his complicated past and a possible new life for herself.

An inherited briefcase of curious objects provides a weekly case for Fiona to crack, so you have a thriller, a cosy procedural and – hot gym owner ahoy! – a budding romance co-existing.

Younger ★★★ (Netflix)

Fans of Emily in Paris take note: Netflix has licensed all seven seasons of this 2015 glossy comic-drama from Sex and the City creator Darren Star. Broadway star Sutton Foster is Liza Miller, a newly divorced 40-year-old single mother who realises she is considered too old to return to her previous career in publishing. Her solution? Claim to be 26 and nab an assistant gig as a foot in the door. The series is quick-witted about twenty-something foibles and sharply paced, as Liza gets a younger boss (Hilary Duff) and a younger boyfriend.

* Stan is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead.

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