If we told you that we’d just seen Nicole Kidman chomping on the contents of a photo album, Betty Gilpin perched ornamentally on a lounge shelf in an elaborate wedding dress, and Meera Syal trying to return her husband at her local grocery store, you’d probably say “Woo! Good for you, Meera Syal!”, and also, “Hold up! What the hell have you been smoking?” The answer is nothing, nothing at all folks – we’ve actually just watched the first trailer for upcoming Apple TV+ anthology series Roar, the latest from the producers of cancelled-too-soon Netflix series GLOW. Check it out for yourselves below.
Based on Cecilia Ahern’s short-story collection of the same name, Roar is an eight-part dark comedy series that uses the magical, the supernatural, and the bizarre to tell the stories of eight women, each dealing with extraordinary struggles. So as well as Kidman snacking on polaroids, Gilpin looking miffed on a mantelpiece, and Syal trying to get a hubby refund, we’ll also be getting: Alison Brie as a ghost trying to solve her own murder; Issa Rae talking, but men can't hear a word she's saying; Cynthia Erivo finding mysterious bite marks all over herself; Kara Hayward and Fivel Stewart trying to make it in the Old West; and Merritt Wever falling in love with a duck.
What we’re really going to be seeing throughout the series, though, beneath the surface of Black Mirror-like surrealism, is the universal struggles that women face being reframed and explored through the prism of fantasy. And with a stupendously stacked ensemble of formidable actresses assembled to tell these feminist fables, along with a slew of supporting stars including Jake Johnson, Hugh Dancy and Daniel Dae Kim, we can’t wait for this one to land on Apple TV+ on 15 April.