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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Michael Hogan

‘Happy Christmas, Ange’: why we have always loved a dramatic TV divorce

Ange Divorce George Kay Angie Watts Deirdre Barlow Dirty Den Dominic West HBO Betty Draper Sienna Miller
Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) and Angie Watts (Anita Dobson) behind the bar at the Queen Vic
Leslie Grantham and Anita Dobson as Den and Angie Watts: 30.1m viewers saw him serve her with divorce papers on Christmas Day. Photograph: BBC

There were 105,002 divorces in England and Wales last year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Right now, it feels like there are almost as many on TV.

The new HBO legal thriller War, which launched on Sky Atlantic on Friday night, chronicles what it calls “the highest-profile divorce case in UK history”. This enjoyably juicy eight-parter is joined in the weekend schedules by the BBC ​drama The Split Up – a Manchester-based spin-off from Abi Morgan’s The Split – following a British Asian family law firm specialising in elite divorces.

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