From sex workers running an apartment brothel to a taxi driver whose other job is spirit medium; from a single mother struggling to raise an autistic son to a banker with a secret alter ego; from an influencer to a domestic helper: all human (and some supernatural) life is here. “Here” is the Sungei Merah public housing estate in Singapore, which emerges as almost a player itself in six-episode drama series Invisible Stories , beginning tonight at 10pm on HBO Go and HBO (further instalments weekly at the same time). Asian nationalities are almost as diverse as characters’ jobs throughout the show, which begins with Lian (Malaysia’s Yeo Yann Yann), kopitiam assistant, divorcee and sole provider for non-verbal autistic son Brian, 19. Devastated by the sudden, inexplicable disappearance of his grandmother and main carer (who has recently died), Brian, played with no little menace by Taiwan’s Devin Pan, frequently attacks his mother during violent rages. The assaults make for disconcerting performances from perpetrator and victim, who find themselves emotionally and financially burned out in a world that doesn’t care – personified by abusive neighbours dismissive of their plight. The message from the series’ creator, Singaporean writer and director Ler Jiyuan , is that there are always compelling tales of triumph and tragedy to be told, especially by the alienated, marginalised and “invisible”, if we’d just stop to look and listen. Filmed wholly on location, Invisible Stories promotes the city state’s multiculturalism too, with actors from Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia also lining up alongside Singaporean players. Chief among those is Wang Yuqing, who stars as the aforementioned taxi driver. When the other world begins to seep into the real one, the unfortunate cabby finds himself terrorised by a malevolent god who pushes him towards self-destruction. Parts of that episode are best watched through one’s fingers. Can The Witcher fill the void left by Game of Thrones? Anybody out there still sobbing over the corpse of Game of Thrones may now dry their eyes: there’s a new game in town. Its name is The Witcher , which is the unofficial title of Geralt of Rivia, a mutant mercenary monster hunter played with typical granite-faced reserve by Henry Cavill. Cavill brings a wry resignation to Geralt’s profession, with a weary, “Do I really have to keep on doing this?” attitude to his day job. But as the hero he’s naturally fated to serve a far greater purpose, beginning by acting as bodyguard to a princess in exile. He’s also desperately in need of a shower and haircut. (Hanging around in swamps vanquishing giant spiders will leave even Superman looking like Worzel Gummidge.) Geralt is despised by the fair-minded, diversity friendly villagers he encounters on his freelance wanderings through warring kingdoms, one of whom tells him he’s generally regarded as “the offspring of foul sorcery, a diabolic creation, filthy degenerate born of Hell”. She then asks if he’s ever been to Hell, but it looks like he’s already there: when the houses of Cintra and Nilfgaard clash, all the bone-shattering horrors of medieval battlefield butchery are unleashed. Meanwhile, Geralt, ever careful not to choose a political side, is inadvertently cast as the world’s final hope against Armageddon – even though he’s warned early on by a wizard that the worst kind of monster is the human kind. Based in no particular chronological order on the novels and short stories of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher , now streaming through eight episodes of series one on Netflix, stands poised to claim the throne of superior sword and sorcery epics.