Cordon

A strong stomach is needed for an apocalyptic new series
Ben-Felsenburg-colour-176Thanks to the cosmopolitan europhilia of whoever buys in BBC Four’s shows, you can learn much about Johnny Foreigner without so much as digging the passport out of the drawer.

Cordon (Saturday, BBC Four, 9pm) is a devilishly unsettling drama from Belgium that portrays with gripping realism a city sealed off to stop the spread of a fatal new virus. British viewers will incidentally discover strange truths about the land of Tintin.

1. A party of Belgian primary schoolchildren will be eerily well-behaved even on a visit to the boring old National Institute for Infectious Diseases. 2. Men still wear their jumpers casually tied across their shoulders, as if they were models from a 1980s Ralph Lauren ad. 3. Men have crazy names like Lex, Mees and Tyl. 4. Women are stuck with plain Jana and Sabine. 5. Headmasters hang out in T-shirts at school. 6. And even in an apocalyptic crisis, top-rank male police officers will keep in their single gold earring. Or perhaps that’s especially in an apocalyptic crisis. 7. English can take you surprisingly far among Flemish speakers – listen out for ‘breaking news’, ‘thank you very much’ and ‘panic’. 8. Ancient Anglo-Saxon swearwords also prove to have left a legacy that will be remarkably familiar to British ears.

After all of which is said and done, I wasn’t laughing by the end of an opening episode that will hold you thoroughly gripped, should you have a stomach strong enough to last the distance.

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