11 Under the Radar British TV Dramas on BritBox in 2026
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Last Updated on May 8, 2026 by Stefanie Hutson
Whether you're new to BritBox or you've been watching for ages, it's almost certain you've overlooked some truly wonderful shows that haven't gotten as much attention in their crowded catalogue. We're not necessarily looking for obscure shows (since many are obscure for a reason) – but for the slightly hidden gems that are easy to overlook in a crowded space.
At last count, the platform hosted 500+ shows (1000+ if you count all the non-fiction BBC Select programming added with a Premier membership). For the purposes of this post, though, we'll stick with shows you can watch via a basic membership.
Life on Mars (and Ashes to Ashes)
Years ago when it premiered, this show was a big deal. It premiered back in 2006 (long before BritBox existed), and it's truly groundbreaking, blending crime drama, sci-fi, and period drama to come up with something entirely unique and compelling. Perhaps because of the period setting, it doesn't feel dated the way some 20 year old shows can. John Simm stars as DCI Sam Tyler, a cop who has a car accident in 2006 and wakes up in the 1970s. There, he finds himself in a lower rank, working for DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) while trying to figure out what exactly has happened to him.
The series is based on the Twilight Zone episode “A Stop at Willoughby” – and the soundtrack is loaded with early 1970s songs by bands artists like David Bowie, Deep Purple, Paul McCartney and Wings, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Lou Reed. Simply put, it's a must-watch for any British crime/mystery fan.
Ashes to Ashes is also on BritBox, and it's a 2008 spin-off in which Keeley Hawes plays Alex Drake, a woman who finds herself in a similar situation (but since the series is kind of a spoiler to Life on Mars, we won't say anything more).
Bancroft
Sarah Parish plays DSU Elizabeth Bancroft, a senior detective who is, by all appearances, a model cop – respected, effective, and on track for a big promotion. When a young DS named Katherine Stevens is handed a cold murder case from 1990, the investigation starts to circle uncomfortably close to Bancroft's past.
The fun – and there is a lot of it – comes from the fact that you know from pretty early on that Bancroft is not what she seems, and watching her try to stay one step ahead makes for genuinely fun, completely insane viewing. Parish is terrific in the role; it's the kind of part that requires the audience to be simultaneously rooting for and unsettled by the same character.
Cold Feet
Strictly speaking, this one isn't exactly under the radar – it was a genuine hit in the UK when it originally ran from 1998 to 2003 – but it's woefully under-watched in the US, so it earns its place here. Set in Manchester, the show follows three couples across different stages of their relationships: Adam and Rachel (James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale), Pete and Jenny (John Thomson and Fay Ripley), and David and Karen (Robert Bathurst and Hermione Norris).
It was frequently compared to Friends(perhaps because Helen Baxendale herself appeared in Friends for a while), but that does it a serious disservice. It's warmer, messier, and considerably more willing to go to dark places. The writers pulled no punches across its five original series, and when ITV revived it in 2016 for four more, the cast slipped back into it with impressive ease. All nine series are on BritBox – and there's still some hope they'll come back for a third round in the next phase of life.
Chasing Shadows
This 2014 ITV series should have had more seasons. Reece Shearsmith plays DS Sean Stone, a detective with a gift for identifying behavioral patterns and almost no ability to function socially – he literally employs someone to remind him to eat. After embarrassing his department publicly, he's exiled to the Missing Persons unit, where he works alongside civilian colleague Ruth Hattersley (Alex Kingston). Together they investigate cases involving serial killers who prey on vulnerable people. The best part? It's genuinely intelligently written. Sometimes, you watch or read something and it feels like someone who isn't all that smart trying to write smarter action and characters than they're capable of – but not this one.
Shearsmith, best known for the pitch-black comedy of shows like Inside No. 9 and The League of Gentlemen, is quietly brilliant here – it's a very different register for him. ITV cancelled it after one series and left viewers on a cliffhanger, which remains a genuine crime. It's still totally worth watching, but we still harbor the faintest of hopes that someone will see sense and bring it back.
The Cazalets
If you have any love for well-crafted family sagas, this 2001 BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Jane Howard's novels is well worth your time. The story spans roughly a decade beginning in 1937, following the extended Cazalet family across their lives in London and their summer estate in Sussex as the war gradually encroaches on their privileged world.
What makes it interesting beyond the historical setting is the cast – including Hugh Bonneville and Lesley Manville before they became international household names – and Howard's gift for showing how thoroughly people can deceive themselves about their own lives. Six episodes, and a note of warning: the adaptation only covers the first two of Howard's five novels, so if it hooks you, there are books waiting to help fill the void.
The Cazalet Novels:
New Blood
Anthony Horowitz is best known for Foyle's War and the Magpie Murders series, both of which operate in a fairly traditional mystery mode. New Blood is something a bit different – a 2016 BBC series that pairs two young junior investigators: Stefan (Mark Strepan), a Polish-British officer with the Serious Fraud Office, and Rash (Ben Tavassoli), an Iranian-British police constable, who discover that their two seemingly unconnected cases are actually linked. The villains here aren't your standard criminals – they're corporations, governments, and wealthy individuals using legitimate structures as cover, which gives the show a slightly different flavor from most British crime drama. Mark Addy and Anna Chancellor round out the cast in supporting roles.
It's fast-paced and energetic, and Horowitz brings his usual strong command of plot mechanics to the whole thing. Seven episodes, one series – BBC didn't renew it, which remains baffling.
Our Mutual Friend (1998)
Back in the late 1990s, producers were still doing classical novel adaptations the old-fashioned way – full cast, solid production values, reasonably faithful to the source material, no massively anachronistic choices – and this 1998 version of his final completed novel is one of the best of the lot. The plot kicks off with the apparent drowning of John Harmon, a young man whose inheritance hinges on his marrying a woman he's never met. The fortune instead passes to the warm-hearted, newly-wealthy Boffins (Peter Vaughan and Pam Ferris), who take in Harmon's intended bride Bella (Anna Friel) and a mysterious secretary named Rokesmith (Steven Mackintosh).
Running parallel is the story of Lizzie Hexam (Keeley Hawes), whose father is accused of the murder, and who finds herself caught between a roguish gentleman (Paul McGann, clearly having a great time) and an obsessive, increasingly dangerous schoolteacher played by David Morrissey in one of his best performances. It's got the full Dickens package – class satire, gothic atmosphere, a genuinely tangled web of secrets – without a single anachronistic “reimagining” in sight. If only they'd produce them like this with modern camera technology…
The Last Detective
Peter Davison plays DC “Dangerous” Davies – the nickname being entirely ironic, since Davies is probably the gentlest detective in the history of British crime television. His boss sums up his standing at the station simply and precisely: Davies is the last detective he would ever think of assigning to anything, unless the job is pointless and beneath everyone else's notice, in which case Davies is first in line.
What he does with those unwanted cases, with the help of his perpetually underemployed best friend Mod (Sean Hughes), is the show. He isn't eccentric, he isn't tortured, he doesn't drink too much or have a complicated past – he's just a decent bloke who's good at his job in a way nobody around him has noticed. Based on Leslie Thomas's novels, the series ran on ITV from 2003 to 2007 across four series, and it's a genuine antidote to the dark and gritty end of British crime drama.
Our Zoo
Cheerful, unpretentious, and thoroughly charming, this 2014 BBC series tells the true story of George Mottershead (Lee Ingleby), a WWI veteran still haunted by the war who, in the early 1930s, decides to purchase a dilapidated manor house in the Cheshire village of Upton and turn it into Britain's first zoo without bars. His wife Lizzie (Liz White) is on board; much of the village is not.
The zoo in question would go on to become Chester Zoo, which is today the most-visited wildlife attraction in Britain outside London – so you go in knowing it works out, but it's still a really lovely story. It's the kind of series that doesn't get made much anymore: a straightforward human-interest story told with warmth and period detail and no particular agenda beyond making you root for the Mottersheads.
Scott & Bailey
The origin story for this one is that Suranne Jones and a friend were complaining over a bottle of wine that there weren't enough good roles for women on British television – roles that weren't defined entirely by their relationship to a male character. The show that resulted ran on ITV for five series from 2011 to 2016 and is one of the better crime dramas of that era. Sadly, we've talked with many newer British TV fans who overlooked it entirely.
Jones plays DC Rachel Bailey, a brilliant interviewer and instinctive detective whose personal life is in near-permanent chaos; Lesley Sharp plays her partner DC Janet Scott, steadier and more experienced, a woman who's made a deliberate choice to stay in the lower ranks rather than climb. Above them both is DCI Gill Murray (Amelia Bullmore), their boss, who adds to the dynamic in ways that are not always what you'd guess. Mainly written by Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley), it's set in Manchester, it was BAFTA-nominated for Best Drama twice, and it holds up better than most of what was on around that time.
Lost in Austen
This one occupies an interesting middle ground – it's the kind of “doing something different” with a classic that actually works, mainly because it's genuinely witty and it isn't trying to pass itself off as the actual work it's based on. Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) is a modern London woman and devoted Pride and Prejudice obsessive who discovers Elizabeth Bennet standing in her bathroom one evening. Elizabeth slips through a portal into the present; Amanda falls through into Longbourn, and proceeds to inadvertently derail the plot she knows by heart at every turn. Darcy ends up drawn to Amanda instead of Elizabeth, Bingley takes up with Lydia, and things generally spiral from there.
What makes it work is that the show treats the source material with genuine affection and the cast is excellent – Hugh Bonneville as Mr. Bennet, Alex Kingston as a sharper-edged Mrs. Bennet, Elliot Cowan as a formidably chilly Darcy, and Gemma Arterton as Elizabeth in one of her earlier roles. Four episodes, 2008, ITV.
Need more viewing ideas?
No worries, that's what we do. Here are a few more lists to try:
- The 10 Best British Mysteries & Crime Dramas on Netflix (US)
- 25 Charming & Fun British Movies You Can Stream
- British TV Mysteries Set in Quaint English Villages
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