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      A Duchess Brought Low by ‘A Very British Scandal’

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      In a new show on Prime Video, Claire Foy plays a British aristocrat whose sex life became the subject of salacious tabloid stories in the 1960s.LONDON — Everybody loves a sex scandal, and a posh one is even better. The great and the good brought down in disgrace: That’s a story people want to hear.In “A Very British Scandal,” a three-part series streaming on Prime Video from April 22, Claire Foy plays the Duchess of Argyll, a real-life aristocrat whose sex life was pored over in a 1960s court case that created a media frenzy and riveted the nation. When the BBC aired “A Very British Scandal” this past December, nearly 7 million people tuned in.The show is a companion to “A Very English Scandal,” another hugely popular Amazon-BBC coproduction in which Hugh Grant played an upper-crust politician who suffered a similar fate.These stories, Foy said in a recent interview, appealed to elements of Britain’s national character. “We’re perverts, aren’t we?” Foy said. “Deep down, all British people love it: We love gossip and love the titillating things other people are getting up to,” she added. “Anything that happens behind closed doors, we’re all completely obsessed with.”In the show’s final episode, one of the duchess’s aristocratic friends bemoans the British public’s desire to know what the upper classes are up to. “The little people in their grubby pits look up to us, because we are not them,” says the friend, played by Julia Davis. But stories about the duchess’s sex life, she says, “are dragging us down so we look just like them.”Foy’s character was never one of “the little people,” but she wasn’t always an aristocrat, either. She was born Margaret Whigham, in Scotland, in 1912. Her father, a self-made textiles millionaire, moved the family to New York when she was a child, and she lived there until she was 14. Back in Britain, she became a much-photographed debutante with a fancy trans-Atlantic sheen, and a fixture of newspaper society pages. After a string of high-profile relationships and a first marriage that ended in divorce, she became the Duchess of Argyll in 1951 when she married the duke, Ian Campbell (played by Paul Bettany in the show), whose family had been part of the Scottish aristocracy since the 1400s.A glamorous A-lister who counted society columnists as her friends, the duchess cultivated a chic media image. And she realized early on she could make money from what we would now call her “personal brand,” taking cash from tabloid newspapers to appear in fawning articles. (“Beautiful! Rich! Distinguished!” read a teaser for a 1961 Daily Mirror splash. “This is the Duchess of Argyll the world knows.”)The duchess, photographed in 1955 for magazine coverage of the London social season. She initially had a symbiotic relationship with the British press. Bert Hardy/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesBut when her marriage to the duke broke down, she lost control of the story. The couple’s nasty divorce case — in which the duchess’s intimate photos were presented in court — made her the subject of salacious newspaper articles and gossipy anecdotes, and later, “A Very British Scandal” and even an opera.During the trial, the duke submitted a list of 88 men he said the duchess had slept with during their marriage, as well as Polaroids he had stolen from her that showed the duchess performing oral sex on an unknown man whose head was not in the frame.Ruling in the duke’s favor to grant the divorce in 1963, the judge said the duchess was a “completely promiscuous woman” who had indulged “in disgusting sexual activities to gratify a debased sexual appetite.” The details of the “headless man” photos were gleefully written up in British newspapers, which raked over the case for months. Margaret the glittering socialite became Margaret “the dirty duchess.”Over the rest of her life, she frittered away the fortune she inherited from her father on a series of unsuccessful law suits and dubious investments. Her personal relations didn’t fare much better: She fell out with a daughter from her first marriage, and many of her friends. The duchess died in penury, at 80, in a London retirement home. The first hymn at her funeral, in 1993, began, “Dear Lord and father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways.”Sarah Phelps, who wrote the script for “A Very British Scandal,” said that the duchess’s case and the media furor around it represented “the end of an era.” It was “the birth of a different kind of journalism, and a way of writing about sex and scandal in a very, very prurient way,” she said. And it paved the way for later media depictions of Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Meghan Markle — “that viciousness and anger that is directed at women in the public eye,” she said.When the initial outrage faded, the duchess remained the subject of snickering innuendos for decades. Grinning men would pose for photos beside the boarding sign for a Scottish boat that shared her name: “Queue here for the Duchess of Argyll.” Today’s TV audiences will have more sympathy for the duchess, who now looks like a victim of “slut-shaming,” and the nonconsensual sharing of her photos like “revenge porn.” It’s unlikely many viewers will judge her for a sex act that some women’s magazines now offer tips on performing. Yet they might still find it hard to warm to the duchess, who Foy plays as an arrogant, scheming snob.“She lied and she cheated, and she did all sorts of really awful things,” Foy said. “In her defense, they were also done to her.”As a person in the public eye, she sympathized with the duchess and her treatment by the press. “She was one thing, and then they decided she was something else,” Foy said. “Journalists dictate the public perception of you in my industry,” she added. “You are completely in the hands of the people who write the story.”Allison Cook portrayed the duchess in a 2013 production of the opera “Powder Her Face,” staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Sara krulwich/The New York TimesAnother author of the duchess’s story is the British composer Thomas Adès, whose 1995 opera “Powder Her Face” casts her as its antiheroine. First presented at the Cheltenham Festival in England, when Adès was just 24, “Powder Her Face” has since been performed over 300 times across Europe and the United States, according to Faber, its publisher.Adès said he started out by looking for a classic operatic plot: “someone in a grand position, who’s outwardly very strong and impressive, who is dismantled and brought low by forces from the outside.” Philip Hensher, the opera’s librettist, remembered the Argyll divorce case, Adès said: The duchess fit the bill perfectly.Whereas “A Very British Scandal” ends with the courtroom judgment, “Powder Her Face” picks up at the end of the duchess’s life, when she was broke and holed up in a hotel she couldn’t afford. In a series of dreamy flashbacks, Adès recreates some key vignettes from the story of her life, including the liaison with “the headless man” as an aria from the duchess that begins with words and ends with humming.“You can’t really pretend that she’s an entirely sympathetic character, that she’s Mimì,” said Adès, referring to the fragile seamstress who dies of tuberculosis in Puccini’s “La Bohème,” “as much as I think she’s such a tragic figure.” The duchess, he added, was “formidable, and did plenty of things that were pretty questionable.”Paul Bettany, center left, plays the duke in “A Very British Scandal,” alongside Foy’s duchess.Alan Peebles/Amazon Prime VideoDespite a persistent whiff of scandal, the duchess continued to lead an active life in London high society for most of the rest of her life, said Lady Colin Campbell, a relative by marriage. “She was certainly a notoriety, but she was never a pariah. People would gossip and say, ‘Oh, look who’s here: Margaret Argyll,’” said Lady Campbell, 72. “But she rose above it, as simple as that. She simply ignored it,” she added.In her later years, when money was running low, the duchess tried again “to convert her fame into income,” Lady Campbell said. In 1986, Margaret published “My Dinner Party Book,” a guide to entertaining, aimed at housewives, that nonetheless included advice like “never invite the Lord Chancellor and two ambassadors to your dinner party at the same time.” (The book did not sell well, Lady Campbell said.)Two years later, at 76, the duchess appeared on “Wogan,” the BBC’s flagship chat show. The presenter, Terry Wogan, trod carefully around the incident that had made her most famous, gently asking, “What about your own story? Your own story was extremely colorful — do you think it would make a good plot?”“Oh, let’s pray not,” the duchess replied. “Let’s not even think about that.” More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to HBO, Hulu, Apple TV+ and More in April

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of April’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Rinko Kikuchi in “Tokyo Vice.”Eros Hoagland/HBO MaxNew to HBO Max‘Tokyo Vice’ Season 1Starts streaming: April 7This TV adaptation of the journalist Jake Adelstein’s memoir is a spiritual successor of the influential 1980s show “Miami Vice,” examining organized crime and its effect on a nation’s social order in the 1990s. Ansel Elgort plays Adelstein, who struggles to be accepted as an American working in the highly competitive Japanese newspaper business. He later gains respect when he begins investigating the Yakuza. Created by the Tony-winning playwright J.T. Rogers (best known for “Oslo”), “Tokyo Vice” explores the complexities of class and race in an era when Japanese business was booming and some of the people making money didn’t want anyone — and especially not some upstart foreigner — to look too closely at how and why.‘The Flight Attendant’ Season 2Starts streaming: April 21Although Season 1 of “The Flight Attendant” deftly — and thoroughly — adapted Chris Bohjalian’s thriller novel of the same name, the series was so well-received that it was bound to get a sequel. At the start of Season 2, the alcoholic flight attendant Cassie (played by Kaley Cuoco, also one of the show’s executive producers) has cleaned up her life after helping international law enforcement solve a murder for which she was once the prime suspect. In the new episodes, Cassie settles into her new part-time gig as a spy and gets caught up in another dangerous mystery. Much of the series’ terrific supporting casts returns, including Rosie Perez as Cassie’s friendly colleague and Zosia Mamet as her best pal.‘Barry’ Season 3Starts streaming: April 24After a three-year layoff, Bill Hader returns as the hit man and aspiring actor Barry Berkman in the dark comedy “Barry,” the series he cocreated with Alec Berg. Season 2 took chances with its story, playing up the inherent absurdity of a stoic killer getting in touch with his feelings in a drama class. Taking cues from classic modern TV crime dramas like “Breaking Bad,” Hader and Berg ratcheted up the tension as Barry ducked the mob, the law and a vengeful old associate played by Stephen Root. Season 3 will continue down that path, while also spoofing the pretensions of Hollywood wannabes, including the promising ingénue Sally (Sarah Goldberg) and the big-hearted acting coach Gene (Henry Winkler).‘We Own This City’Starts streaming: April 25The latest Baltimore-centered series from David Simon, creator of “The Wire,” is a collaboration with his frequent writing partner, the best-selling crime novelist George Pelecanos. Based on the crime reporter Justin Fenton’s nonfiction book of the same name, “We Own This City” stars Jon Bernthal as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, who becomes involved with Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force, a well-meaning but ultimately corrupt organization that attempted to quell crime by tracking how gangs armed themselves. Set in the years immediately after the city’s police department came under increased scrutiny because of the death of Freddie Gray in its custody, “We Own This City” is a gritty drama about how some entrenched institutions respond to attempts at reform: by learning the new laws well enough to skirt them.Also arriving:April 4“The Invisible Pilot”April 5“Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off”April 8“A Black Lady Sketch Show” Season 3April 14“The Garcias” Season 1April 24“The Baby” Season 1April 27“The Survivor”April 28“The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin” Part 2Cynthia Erivo in “Roar.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Slow Horses’ Season 1Starts streaming: April 1Gary Oldman stars in this twisty British spy drama as Jackson Lamb, the grouchy supervisor of a ramshackle MI5 division known as Slough House, where disgraced agents are sent to do drudge work. Jack Lowden plays River Cartwright, a young operative determined to claw his way back from the bottom by doing some unauthorized investigating on a tricky case — and ends up dragging his misfit cohorts into it. Based on a Mick Herron series of mystery-thriller novels, “Slow Horses” features a terrific cast (including Olivia Cooke as Cartwright’s savvy-but-cynical colleague, Jonathan Pryce as his disappointed father and Kristin Scott Thomas as an upper-level MI5 boss) and a plot rooted equally in old-fashioned espionage stories and the modern realities of European security.‘Roar’ Season 1Starts streaming: April 15The writer-producer team of Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch — the cocreators of the TV series “GLOW” — go the anthology route with their new project “Roar,” which features lightly surreal half-hour dramas and comedies about women struggling to be seen and heard. Nicole Kidman is an executive producer, and also stars in one episode as an Australian woman taking her increasingly senile mother (Judy Davis) on a road trip, in a desperate effort to keep their family memories alive. Other episodes feature Issa Rae, as a best-selling author who travels to Hollywood and gets ignored by the people who want to adapt her book; Betty Gilpin, as a retired model whose husband (Daniel Dae Kim) puts her on a shelf as a literal trophy wife; and Merritt Wever, as a woman who falls in love with a duck.Also arriving:April 8“Pinecone & Pony” Season 1April 22“They Call Me Magic”April 29“Shining Girls”Andrew Garfield in “Under the Banner of Heaven.”Michelle Faye/FXNew to Hulu‘Under the Banner of Heaven’Starts streaming: April 28In Jon Krakauer’s controversial 2003 nonfiction book “Under the Banner of Heaven,” the author combined the true story of a heinous crime committed by a Mormon splinter group with the story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself — making the argument that the line between fringe fanaticism and mainstream religion is thinner than many presume. The TV adaptation was written by the Oscar-winning “Milk” screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who grew up Mormon (and who also worked on the HBO series “Big Love,” about polygamous families in Utah). This mini-series focuses mainly on the murders covered in Krakauer’s book, with Andrew Garfield playing the detective investigating the case.Also arriving:April 1“Love Me” Season 1“Night Raiders”“Snakehead”April 4“Madagascar: A Little Wild” Season 7April 5“The Croods: Family Tree” Season 2“Monster Family 2: Nobody’s Perfect”April 6“The Hardy Boys” Season 2April 7“Agnes”April 8“Woke” Season 2April 9“American Sicario”April 10“The Hating Game”April 14“The Kardashians” Season 1April 21“Captive Audience”April 29“Crush”Rueby Wood, center, as Nate in “Better Nate Than Ever.”David Lee/Disney+New to Disney+‘Better Nate Than Ever’Starts streaming: April 1Based on Tim Federle’s Y.A. novel, “Better Nate Than Ever” tells the story of the enthusiastic and socially awkward middle school theater kid Nate Foster (Rueby Wood), who hops a bus from Pittsburgh with his best friend Libby (Aria Brooks) to attend an open audition for a Broadway musical. Federle wrote and directed this movie adaptation, which retains two of the central ideas from his book: that it takes a winning personality and a lot of good luck to make it in show business, and that Nate won’t succeed until he is honest with himself and with his loved ones about his sexuality. Lisa Kudrow plays a pivotal role as Nate’s Aunt Heidi, whose fading dreams of stage stardom still inspire her nephew.Also arriving:April 13“Scrat Tales” Season 1April 22“The Biggest Little Farm: The Return”“Explorer: The Last Tepui”“Polar Bear”April 27“Sketchbook” Season 1New to Peacock‘Killing It’ Season 1Starts streaming: April 14The affable comic actor Craig Robinson anchors the half-hour dramedy “Killing It,” playing a particular kind of Florida Man: an unflappable dreamer named Craig, who keeps pursuing his plans to become an entrepreneur even as he stumbles repeatedly into catastrophes. Rell Battle plays Craig’s brother Isaiah, who tries to lure him into a life of crime, while Claudia O’Doherty plays Jillian, an upbeat Australian ride-share driver who presents him with a strange and uniquely Floridian business opportunity: the chance to kill giant snakes for reward money. Cocreated by the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” writers Luke Del Tredici and Dan Goor, “Killing It” is a show about people following especially rocky paths as they chase their versions of the American Dream.Also arriving:April 20“So Dumb It’s Criminal” Season 1April 28“Smother” Season 2Christopher Walken in “The Outlaws.”James Pardon/Amazon StudiosNew to Prime Video‘The Outlaws’ Season 1Starts streaming: April 1Stephen Merchant is best known for co-writing the Ricky Gervais sitcoms “The Office” and “Extras,” but he tries something different with “The Outlaws,” a show halfway between a broad comedy and a crime drama. Merchant plays one of a handful of eclectic British citizens sentenced to community service to atone for various petty misdemeanors. As they shovel garbage in a blighted neighborhood, the members of this motley crew get to know each other, learning there’s more to their lives than their mistakes. The cast of cons also includes Christopher Walken as an aged reprobate, Darren Boyd as an uptight businessman, Eleanor Tomlinson as a celebrity influencer, Rhianne Barreto as an honors student who compulsively shoplifts, and Gamba Cole as a reluctant gangster who accidentally gets everyone into bigger trouble.Also arriving:April 8“All the Old Knives”April 15“Outer Range” Season 1April 29“Undone” Season 2 More

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      Why TV-Inspired Vacations Are on the Rise

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      TV-themed itineraries are on the rise, taking travelers on adventures with familiar shows during a time of uncertainty.With 70 percent of Americans watching more TV in 2021 than they did in 2020, binge-watching has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Now, as borders reopen, restrictions ease and travel restarts, tour advisers are fielding an increasingly popular request: immersive, TV-themed itineraries that allow travelers to live out their favorite shows’ story lines.In Britain, where all travel restrictions are now lifted, hotels in London have partnered with Netflix to offer Lady Whistledown-themed teas inspired by “Bridgerton” high society. In Yellowstone National Park, travelers are arriving in Wyoming not for a glimpse of Old Faithful, but for a chance to cosplay as John Dutton from the hit drama “Yellowstone.”And in South Korea, where vaccinated travelers can now enter without quarantine, street food vendors on Jeju Island are anticipating a run on dalgona candy, the honeycomb toffees that played a central role in “Squid Game.”“When you fall in love with a character, you can’t get it out of your mind,” said Antonina Pattiz, 30, a blogger who last year got hooked on “Outlander,” the steamy, time-traveling drama about Claire Beauchamp, a nurse transported 200 years back in history. Ms. Pattiz and her husband, William, binge-watched the Starz show together, and are now planning an “Outlander”-themed trip to Scotland in May to visit sites from the show, including Midhope Castle, which stands in as Lallybroch, the family home of another character, Jamie Fraser.Mr. Pattiz is part Scottish, Ms. Pattiz said, and their joint interest in the show kicked off a desire on his part to explore his roots. “You watch the show and you really start to connect with the characters and you just want to know more,” she said.The fifth season of “Outlander” was available in February 2020, and Starz’s 142 percent increase in new subscribers early in the pandemic has been largely attributed to a jump in locked-down viewers discovering the show. During the ensuing two-year hiatus before Season 6 recently hit screens — a period of time known by fans as “Droughtlander” — “Outlander”-related attractions in Scotland, like Glencoe, which appears in the show’s opening credits and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, saw more than 1.7 million visitors. “Outlander”-related content on Visit Scotland’s website generated more than 350,000 page views, ahead of content pegged to the filming there of Harry Potter and James Bond movies.The Pattizs, who live in New York City, will follow a 12-day self-driving sample itinerary provided by Visit Scotland, winding from Edinburgh to Fife to Glasgow as they visit castles and gardens where Claire fell in love and Jamie’s comrades died in battle. Private tour companies, including Nordic Visitor and Inverness Tours, have also unveiled customized tours.The ‘Sex and the City’ UniverseThe sprawling franchise revolutionized how women were portrayed on the screen. And the show isn’t over yet. A New Series: Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte return for another strut down the premium cable runway in “And Just Like That,” streaming on HBO. Off Broadway: Candace Bushnell, whose writing gave birth to the “Sex and the City” universe, stars in her one-woman show based on her life. In Carrie’s Footsteps: “Sex and the City” painted a seductive vision of Manhattan, inspiring many young women to move to the city. The Origins: For the show’s 20th anniversary in 2018, Bushnell shared how a collection of essays turned into a pathbreaking series.Enduring trend, new intensityScreen tourism, which encompasses not just pilgrimages to filming locations but also studio tours and visits to amusement parks like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, is an enduring trend. Tourists flocked to Salzburg in the 1960s after the release of “The Sound of Music”; in recent decades, locations like New Zealand saw a huge bump in visits from “Lord of the Rings” fans and bus tours in New York City have offered tourists a chance to go on location of “Sex and the City” and “The Marvelous Ms. Maisel.”But in this pandemic moment, where travel has for months been synonymous with danger and tourists are navigating conflicting desires to safeguard their health while also making up for squandered time, screen tourism is taking on a new intensity, said Rachel Kazez, a Chicago-based mental health therapist. She has clients eager to travel — another major trend for 2022 is “going big” — but they are looking for ways to tamp down the anxiety that may accompany those supersized ambitions.She said her patients increasingly are saying “‘I was cooped up for a year and I just want to go nuts. Let’s do whatever fantasy we’ve been thinking about’.”“If we’ve been watching a TV show, we know everything about it, and we can go and have a totally immersive experience that’s also extremely predictable,” Ms. Kazez continued. Cyndi Lam, a pharmacist in Fairfax, Va., has longed to go to Morocco for years. But she didn’t feel confident pulling the trigger until last month, when “Inventing Anna,” the nine-episode drama about the sham heiress Anna Delvey, began streaming on Netflix.In episode six of “Inventing Anna,” the character flies to Marrakesh and stays at La Mamounia, a lavish five-star resort. Ms. Lam and her husband are now booked to stay there in September.“Everybody can kind of relate to Anna,” Ms. Lam said. “I found her character to be fascinating, and when she went to Morocco, I was like, ‘OK, we’re going to Morocco.’ It sealed the deal.”In December, Club Wyndham teamed up with Hallmark Channel to design three suites tied to the “Countdown to Christmas” holiday movie event. They sold out in seven hours.Courtesy of Club WyndhamSensing a new desire among guests to tap into the scripted universe, dozens of hotels over the past year have rolled out themed suites inspired by popular shows. Graduate Hotels has a “Stranger Things”-themed suite at its Bloomington, Ind., location, with areas designed like the living room and basement of central characters like the Byers. A blinking alphabet of Christmas lights and Eleven’s favorite Eggo waffles are included. And in December, Club Wyndham teamed up with the Hallmark Channel to design three “Countdown to Christmas”-themed suites where guests could check in and binge Christmas films. They sold out in seven hours.“It was the first time we’d done anything like this,” said Lara Richardson, chief marketing officer for Crown Media Family Networks, in an email. “One thing we hear over and over from viewers is that, as much they love our products, they want to step inside a ‘Countdown to Christmas’ movie.”Vacation homes are also going immersive. For families, Airbnb partnered with BBC to list the Heeler House, a real-world incarnation of the animated home on the beloved animated series “Bluey,” and Vrbo has 10 rental homes inspired by “Yes Day,” the 2021 Netflix film about parents who remove “no” from their vocabulary. Celebrities are jumping in, too: Issa Rae, creator and star of HBO’s “Insecure,” offered an exclusive look at her neighborhood in South Los Angeles in February with a special Airbnb listing, at a rock-bottom price of $56.Tea on TV, now in London (and Boston)“Bridgerton,” Netflix’s British period drama about family, love and savage gossip, was streamed by 82 million households in 2021. (For comparison, the finale of “Breaking Bad” in 2013 had 10.3 million viewers; more recent streaming hits, including “Tiger King” and “Maid,” had fewer than 70 million). When season two of “Bridgerton” premieres on March 25, Beaverbrook Town House, a hotel built across two Georgian townhouses in London’s Chelsea, will offer a “Bridgerton” experience that includes a day out in London and drinks in the British countryside; nearby at the Lanesborough, a Bridgerton-themed tea, cheekily dubbed “the social event of the season,” will kick off the same day. In Boston, the Fairmont Copley Plaza now has a “High Society Package” for fans with flowers and a private afternoon tea.Contiki, the group travel company for 18- to 35-year-olds, had a “Bridgerton”-themed itinerary set for September 2021 but had to scrap it when the Delta variant hit; they’ve now partnered with Amazon Prime on a Hawaiian Islands trip inspired by “I Know What You Did Last Summer” set for July.Both Netflix and Amazon Prime have brand partnership teams that handle collaborations of this nature.“As we come out of this pandemic, the desire for more immersive experiences is really stronger than ever,” said Adam Armstrong, Contiki’s chief executive. “It’s about getting under the skin of destinations, creating those Instagrammable moments that recreate stuff from films and movies. It’s really a strong focus for us.”The popularity of “Bridgerton” on Netflix was eclipsed by “Squid Game,” the high-stakes South Korean survival drama, and despite that show’s carnage, travelers are booking Squid Game vacations, too. Remote Lands, an Asia-focused travel agency, reported a 25 percent increase in interest in South Korean travel and created a Seoul guide for fans and a customized itinerary.Some travel advisers say that some clients don’t even want to explore the locations they’re traveling to. They just want to be there while they continue binge-watching.Emily Lutz, a travel adviser in Los Angeles, said that more than 20 percent of her total requests over the past few months have been for travel to Yellowstone National Park, a result of the popularity of “Yellowstone,” the western family drama starring Kevin Costner on the Paramount Network and other streaming services. And not all of her clients are interested in hiking.“I had a client who wrote me and said, ‘All we want to do is rent a lodge in the mountains, sit in front of the fireplace, and watch episodes of ‘Yellowstone’ — while we’re in Yellowstone’,” she said.52 Places for a Changed WorldThe 2022 list highlights places around the globe where travelers can be part of the solution.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022. More

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      Streaming Companies Are Looking to Britain for Studios to Meet Demand

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      Netflix, Amazon Prime and other studios are snapping up soundstages in Britain and building more, drawn by an experienced labor pool and alluring tax incentives.LIVERPOOL, England — For two decades, the Littlewoods building in Liverpool, a long, low-slung and cavernous space built to house a betting and mail-order company in the 1930s, sat abandoned. No one wanted to take on this crumbling hulk looming on the outskirts of the city.Until Lynn Saunders. She is the driving force to make it the center of Liverpool’s first film and TV studio complex.“It’s a beast of a site,” said Ms. Saunders, the head of the Liverpool Film Office. It had been too intimidating for most prospective buyers. But amid a boom in TV and film production in Britain, Littlewoods Studios is now one of at least two dozen major plans to build or expand studio space across Britain.Streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video are racing to meet insatiable demand for content and have chosen Britain as their location to make it, countering the malaise of overall investment in the nation since it voted to leave the European Union. In 2021, a record 5.6 billion pounds ($7.4 billion) was spent on film and high-end TV productions in Britain, nearly 30 percent more than the previous high in 2019, according to the British Film Institute. More than 80 percent of that money was coming ashore from American studios or other foreign productions.Lynn Saunders, the head of the Liverpool Film Office, hopes that adding studios will keep productions in town and stimulate the local economy.Francesca Jones for The New York TimesAssured that there is no imminent end to the desire for binge-worthy shows and movies, studios, property developers and local authorities are rushing to build more production space. Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity company, and Hudson Pacific Properties, the owner of Sunset Studios, which include the former homes of Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. off Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, have said they will invest £700 million to build the first Sunset Studios facility outside Los Angeles, just north of London. With 21 soundstages, it will be larger than any of its Hollywood studios.“There is just such a massive need to produce content in markets that already have infrastructure,” said Victor Coleman, the chairman and chief executive of Hudson Pacific Properties. “And the infrastructure is not necessarily just the facilities but it’s also the talent both in front and behind the camera.”The once-abandoned Littlewoods building in Liverpool. The site is now one of about a dozen major plans to build or expand studio space across Britain.Francesca Jones for The New York TimesThe early “Star Wars” films and 10 years’ worth of Harry Potter movies helped Britain get here. Film productions were attracted by experienced labor and visual effects companies and, critically, generous tax breaks. In 2013, the incentives were extended to TV productions that cost more than £1 million per broadcast hour — so-called high-end TV series, like “The Crown” and “Game of Thrones.” In recent years, productions were offered a 25 percent cash rebate on qualifying expenditures, such as visual effects done in Britain. In the 2020-21 fiscal year, tax breaks for film, TV, video games, children’s television and animation exceeded £1.2 billion.In Britain, film gets a level of government attention that other creative industries, such as live theater, can only dream of.“I would not like to contemplate the loss of the tax incentive,” said Ben Roberts, the chief executive of the British Film Institute. Without it, Britain would become immediately uncompetitive, he added.Most of the growth in production in Britain comes from big-budget TV shows, a staple of streaming channels. Last year, 211 high-end TV productions filmed in Britain, such as “Ted Lasso” and “Good Omens,” and fewer than half of them were produced solely by British companies, according to the British Film Institute. Compared with 2019, the amount spent jumped by 85 percent to £4.1 billion.Buildings and streets in Liverpool were transformed into Gotham City for the filming of “The Batman.”Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros.St. George’s Hall in Liverpool was used in “The Batman.”Francesca Jones for The New York TimesA scene shows Batman jumping off the Liver building, in front of its clock.Francesca Jones for The New York TimesLiverpool already claims to be the second-most-filmed-in city in Britain after London. For a few weeks in late 2020, its streets became Gotham City for “The Batman,” and for years shows, including “Peaky Blinders,” have been shot there. The local authority is courting more TV shows by building four smaller studios.Property developers announced the plan for Littlewoods Studios in early 2018, but the grand ambitions were pushed off course a few months later by a fire in the building. Not wanting to miss out on the rising demand, Ms. Saunders convinced the City Council to spend £3 million building two soundstages adjacent to the site. They opened in October.And then at the end of last year, £8 million in public funding was approved for remedial work on the Littlewoods building to create two more sound stages. Ms. Saunders hopes that adding studios will keep productions in town for longer — occupying hotel rooms, ordering from restaurants and employing local people. The film office has also started investing in productions — so far to the tune of £2 million in six TV shows.Britain is already the largest production location for Netflix outside the United States and Canada. While plenty is filmed on location — such as “Bridgerton,” in Bath, and “Sex Education,” in Wales — Netflix committed to a permanent home in 2019 at the Pinewood Group’s Shepperton Studios in Surrey, just southwest of London, where “Dr. Strangelove” and “Oliver!” were made decades ago. Shepperton is now expanding, aiming to double the number of its soundstages to 31 by 2023, and Netflix plans to occupy much of that new space.“Ted Lasso” was one of 211 high-end TV productions filmed in Britain last year.Colin Hutton/Apple TV+, via Associated PressBut the descent of American streamers on British shores has brought its challenges, too. The industry is rife with stories of production crews leaving jobs for higher-paying gigs, long waits for studios and production costs that outpace inflation.Anna Mallett, Netflix’s vice president of physical production for the U.K., Europe, Middle East and Africa, resists the idea that the streamer’s voracious expansion is squeezing others out of studio space.“I do think there is enough for everyone,” she said. “There’s over six million square feet of production space coming onto the market in the next couple of years.”Amazon plans to move in next door. Last month, Prime Video agreed to lease 450,000 square feet in the new development at Shepperton Studios, including nine soundstages. The streaming service sent a ripple of excitement through Britain last year when it announced that it would film the second season of its “Lord of the Rings” series, “The Rings of Power,” in the country. It will move from New Zealand to the dismay of that country’s officials, who over two decades have offered hundreds of millions of dollars in financial incentives to the franchise.By 2023, Warner Bros. hopes to be underway with its plans to add 50 percent more soundstage space to its studios northwest of London.Warner Bros. was the first major Hollywood studio to set up a permanent location in Britain when it bought in 2010 the Leavesden studios, where it made Harry Potter.“It was a pretty huge leap for Warners to make that investment,” said Emily Stillman, the head of studio operations at Leavesden. After years of piecemeal expansion, the new development, if it gets planning approval, will be the studio’s biggest investment at the site.Away from more renowned studios surrounding London, there is hope that the production boom can bring job opportunities and investment to overlooked areas in Britain. New studios are being constructed out of an old industrial space in Dagenham, in east London, an area once synonymous with the manufacture of Ford cars in the 20th century. In Bristol, the local authority is investing £12 million to add three more soundstages to Bottle Yard Studios in an area that is economically struggling, said Laura Aviles, the head of the Bristol Film Office.A guide leading a tour of filiming areas in Liverpool, which are rapidly expanding as the industry invests in Britain.Francesca Jones for The New York Times“It’s been a struggle” to regenerate the area, she said, “and there are a lot of young people there who could be third-generation unemployed who have struggled to get into work.” The expansion will hopefully entice other businesses to the area.There is a risk that all this demand for studio space could become a blessing and a curse. Despite the skilled work force in the field, there are real concerns about whether Britain can train enough production crew and fill the associated roles to populate all this new studio space. The industry has committed millions of pounds to rapid training programs. Industry leaders hope to bring more people into the field and break the stereotype that the work — most of it freelance — is exclusively for the well off and well connected. This month, Prime Video said it would spend £10 million to fund courses in Britain focused on increasing diversity in the industry and positions in Prime Video-commissioned productions.And there is the fear that smaller independent productions by British filmmakers, who can’t as readily use debt to finance an expansion, will be left behind in this boom. Just 16 percent of the money spent on high-end TV shows in Britain last year went to solely domestic productions.The level of foreign investment “does run the risk of challenging the indigenous, independent sector in terms of its ability to retain talent, crew up, get finance, hire space, use locations,” Mr. Roberts of the British Film Institute said. “We are really alert to that not feeling like a squeeze too far.” More

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      Pete Davidson to Join Next Blue Origin Space Flight

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      The “Saturday Night Live” comedian will be one of six passengers to fly to the edge of space this month with Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos.The “Saturday Night Live” actor Pete Davidson will travel to the edge of space next week on the next Blue Origin spaceflight, the company said on Monday.Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, said on Monday that it would launch its fourth flight with human passengers on March 23. Mr. Davidson will be one of six passengers on the company’s New Shepard rocket for its 20th flight.Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the richest people in the world, was a passenger on the company’s first flight with humans on board last July. Earlier that month, another private spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, took its founder, Richard Branson, to the edge of space and back.Mr. Davidson, 28, joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2014. He has also appeared in movies, including the 2020 semi-autobiographical film “The King of Staten Island.” He could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.A Blue Origin spokeswoman said Monday that Mr. Davidson would fly as “an honorary guest,” while the other five passengers were paying customers. The spokeswoman did not say how much the others had been charged to join the flight.Mr. Davidson will be the latest celebrity passenger to travel to the edge of space with Blue Origin.In October, the “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, 90, became the oldest person to travel to space and cross the Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space that is about 62 miles above the planet’s surface. Mr. Shatner shared the New Shepard rocket with three other passengers on a mission that lasted about 10 minutes.In December, Michael Strahan, the “Good Morning America” co-host, joined a Blue Origin flight with five others.The flight carrying Mr. Davidson is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas at 8:30 a.m. local time on March 23.In addition to Mr. Davidson, Blue Origin said on Monday, the flight will have five other passengers: Marty Allen, Sharon and Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen and George Nield.Mr. Allen is a former chief executive of Party America, the party-supply store. Mr. Hagle is the president and chief executive of Tricor International, a residential and commercial property development company. Ms. Hagle founded the nonprofit group SpaceKids Global. Mr. Kitchen is a professor of the practice of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Dr. Nield is the president of Commercial Space Technologies. From 2008 to 2018, he was associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that regulates commercial launches like Blue Origin’s.Kenneth Chang More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to HBO, Hulu, Apple TV+ and More in March

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of March’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)John C. Reilly, Quincy Isaiah and Jason Clarke in “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty”HBONew to HBO Max‘Drive My Car’Starts streaming: March 2Nominated for four Academy Awards this year, including best picture, this critically acclaimed drama is a captivating meditation on loss and regret. Directed and co-written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (adapting a Haruki Murakami short story), “Drive My Car” has Hidetoshi Nishijima playing Yusuke Kafuku, a renowned actor and theater director who is mourning the death of his wife and muse. When he agrees to direct a multilingual stage adaptation of “Uncle Vanya” in Hiroshima, Yusuke bonds with his designated driver, while also forging a wary relationship with the play’s star — who was his late wife’s secret lover. Though the movie has a three-hour running time, Hamaguchi moves the plot fairly briskly from one quietly intense scene to another, bringing a beautiful blue tinge to the story of a man haunted by all things he has left unsaid and undone.‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty’Starts streaming: March 6The sports reporter Jeff Pearlman’s book “Showtime” covered the rise of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, an exciting and star-laden team who helped the N.B.A. become an international phenomenon. The TV adaptation “Winning Time” turns that tale into a stylish period dramedy and features an all-star cast recreating an era when a handful of strong, often conflicting personalities changed the whole culture of professional basketball. The producer Adam McKay (who also directed the first episode) and creators Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht deploy a storytelling style reminiscent of McKay’s movie “The Big Short,” where characters like Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly), Jerry West (Jason Clarke), Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) and Pat Riley (Adrien Brody) sometimes break the fourth wall to help explain the fine details of business management, on-court strategy and handling superstar egos.‘Minx’ Season 1Starts streaming: March 17Set amid the freewheeling publishing industry in early 1970s Los Angeles, “Minx” stars Ophelia Lovibond as Joyce, an activist who gets the chance to create and edit the feminist magazine of her dreams — so long as she is willing to include erotic photo spreads of naked men. Jake Johnson plays Doug, a successful pornographer who mentors Joyce, a proudly independent woman embarrassed to admit the troubles she has had adjusting to the age of sexual liberation. Created by Ellen Rapoport, “Minx” finds humor in the ways that certain gender-role expectations and stereotypes persist even in an “anything goes” era of free love and progressive politics.Also arriving:March 1“The Larry David Story”March 2“West Side Story”March 3“Gaming Wall Street”“Little Ellen” Season 2“Our Flag Means Death” Season 1“The Tourist” Season 1March 8“Ruxx” Season 1March 10“Dune”“Theodosia” Season 1March 13“Game Theory with Bomani Jones” Season 1March 13“Blade Runner: Black Lotus” Season 1March 15“Phoenix Rising”March 17“DMZ” Season 1“Jellystone!” Season 2March 18“Lust” Season 1“Pseudo”March 20“Amsterdam” Season 1March 24“King Richard”“One Perfect Shot” Season 1“Starstruck” Season 2March 31“Julia” Season 1“Moonshot”Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball as seen in “Lucy and Desi.”Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesNew to Prime Video‘Lucy and Desi’Starts streaming: March 4The comedian and producer Amy Poehler directed this homage to the groundbreaking Hollywood power couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, taking a comprehensive look at their impressive careers and rocky marriage. With the help of rare home movies and old audio interviews — combined with new comments from Carol Burnett, Bette Midler and others — Poehler and her team detail how Ball and Arnaz worked their way up in show business, before creating the groundbreaking sitcom “I Love Lucy” and founding the influential television studio Desilu Productions. This is a film about two widely beloved entertainers who helped change television with their business savvy and their stubborn refusals to compromise, even as they worked to exhaustion and made each other miserable behind the scenes.Also arriving:March 4“The Boys Presents: Diabolical”March 7“2022 Academy of Country Music Awards”March 10“Harina”March 11“Upload” Season 2March 18“Master”March 25“Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls”Steve Sang-Hyun Noh, center, with Minha Kim and Inji Jeong in “Pachinko.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Pachinko’ Season 1Starts streaming: March 25Min Jin Lee’s best-selling historical novel “Pachinko” inspired this ambitious drama, which follows one Korean family across three countries and seven decades against the backdrop of war and military occupation. Created by Soo Hugh — a writer and producer on “The Terror” — and featuring the work of the acclaimed indie film directors Kogonada and Justin Chon, “Pachinko” weaves together story lines from multiple time periods, including from a Korean fishing village in the early 20th century and Japan around the time of World War II and the late 1980s, when global business concerns were shrinking a lot of the old distinctions between regions and ideals. Like the book, the series is about the legacies and connections that sustain people through times of turmoil.Also arriving:March 4“Dear…” Season 2March 11“The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey”March 18“WeCrashed”Amanda Seyfried portraying Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout.”Beth Dubber/HuluNew to Hulu‘The Dropout’Starts streaming: March 3Amanda Seyfried plays the scandal-plagued biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout,” a miniseries based on the podcast of the same name. Anyone who has read the various investigative exposés about Holmes’s failed start-up, Theranos, already knows the yarn of how the company claimed to have developed a groundbreaking blood-testing device that never worked as promised. “The Dropout” goes deeper into Holmes’s past, framing her less as a hapless fraud than as a well-meaning misfit who was in too much of a rush to become rich and famous.‘Atlanta’ Season 3Starts streaming: March 25After a four-year layoff, Donald Glover’s one-of-a-kind, award-winning dramedy “Atlanta” returns for its third and penultimate season, which was shot mostly in London. (Season 4 is currently slated to run this fall, wrapping up the series.) The story picks up with the aspiring rap star Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) and his bumbling manager and cousin, Earn (Glover), trying to make inroads in the European market while they and their friends Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) and Van (Zazie Beetz) are feeling more alienated than usual by their surroundings. As always with “Atlanta,” expect the unexpected, as Glover and his creative team explore aspects of the Black experience that range from the subtly poignant to the comically surreal.Also arriving:March 1“Better Things” Season 5“The Savior for Sale”March 4“Benedetta”“Dicktown” Season 2“Fresh”March 6“Mark, Mary & Some Other People”March 8“India Sweets and Spices”March 10“American Refugee”March 14“Hell Hath No Fury”March 15“You Can’t Kill Meme”March 17“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”March 18“Deep Water”“Life & Beth” Season 1March 19“Captains of Za’atari”March 26“Mass”March 29“The Girl from Plainville”Oscar Isaac as the hero in “Moon Knight.”Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios.New to Disney+‘Moon Knight’ Season 1Starts streaming: March 30The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe television series features a cult-favorite superhero: a cloaked vigilante who draws inspiration and strength from an ancient Egyptian god. Oscar Isaac plays the hero, who has dissociative identity disorder but does his best to use the unique qualities of his different selves in his fight over evil. In the Marvel comics, Moon Knight is a fairly dark, violent character, similar to Batman and Daredevil in his knowledge of the criminal underworld and his willingness to crack skulls. The TV version is being pitched as similarly shadowy, as evidenced by the first season’s main villain: a charismatic religious cult leader played by Ethan Hawke.Also arriving:March 11“Turning Red”March 18“Cheaper by the Dozen”“More Than Robots”March 23“Parallels” Season 1March 25“Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u”“The Wonderful Spring of Mickey Mouse” More

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      ‘Book of Love’ Review: Lust (Eventually) in Translation

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      Unbeknown to the author of an uninspired romance novel, the book takes a sharp turn into erotic territory in its Spanish-language release.“Who wrote the book of love?,” the Monotones once mused. It couldn’t possibly be Henry Copper (Sam Claflin), a stodgy author whose debut romance novel is so devoid of passion that it sells only two copies in his native Britain. But when an audacious translator named María Rodríguez (Verónica Echegui) reimagines Henry’s chaste love story as soapy erotica, he becomes a surprise sensation in Mexico.In “The Book of Love” (on Amazon), María is not only a remixer for Henry’s duller passages, she is also his assigned escort on his book tour of Mexico. Henry, who doesn’t speak Spanish, is excited — if perplexed — by the legions of fans who turn out, titillated by the telenovela-worthy sex scenes María added to his work without consulting him. But once several comic exchanges bring her poetic license to light, his thrill turns to rage. Choking on sanctimony, Henry agrees to continue on the tour, but only to preserve his reputation.When, and in which picturesque city, Henry and María will acknowledge their mutual affection is the burning question of this romantic comedy trifle, which offers a few laughs and many more exasperated groans. As our leading man, Claflin alternates between a pout and a wan smile, and shows all the charm of beans on toast. As for María, there is something tired and clichéd about a Mexican woman’s being deputed to help a British fuddy-duddy embrace narrative spice. It’s a shame that the movie, written and directed by Analeine Cal y Mayor, can’t see that María has better things to do.Book of LoveNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More

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      Amazon Unveils Title for Big-Budget ‘Lord of the Rings’ Series

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      Amazon Prime Video’s long-gestating “Lord of the Rings” series, which will make its debut on the streaming platform in September, officially has a name: “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”In addition to revealing the title on Wednesday, Amazon announced that the series would take place thousands of years before the events of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy of films adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels by the director and producer Peter Jackson.The streaming series, more than four years in the making, represents the most ambitious effort since Amazon began investing in original programming.The company bought the rights to “The Lord of the Rings” for more than $200 million in November 2017, when there was a power vacuum in the executive wing of its streaming division. Roy Price, then the head of Amazon Studios, was forced to resign a month before the deal, after a producer had accused him of sexual harassment. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, was involved in the negotiations, Variety reported. (Mr. Bezos, who tweets infrequently, promoted the series in a Twitter post on Wednesday.)The development of the series has been the responsibility of Jennifer Salke, the executive who took charge of Amazon Studios in February 2018. Ms. Salke tapped J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay to be showrunners of the series in July 2018, and production has been underway in New Zealand, where Mr. Jackson filmed his trilogy.The showrunners said in a statement that “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was “a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics.” More