The Right Stuff review – Disney dazzles with Mad Men ... in space

Disney blasts off with an intriguing drama about how Nasa socked it to the Soviets in the 1960s with its manned spaceflight programme

It's Mad Men in Space, almost. Disney+ marks its first anniversary with The Right Stuff, an eight-part drama based on Tom Wolfe's non-fiction book of the same name (and the 1983 film that was based on that) about the astronauts of Nasa's Project Mercury, the Mercury Seven.

Like Mad Men, it is set in the late 1950s and early 60s and everything - especially the suited and booted, would-be conquering heroes at its core - looks slick and gorgeous. That much you might expect from a Disney-made tale of real life derring-do, but what is unexpected is that the show concentrates on what a mess everything was, including the astronauts (apart from John Glenn, apparently), behind the scenes. It's a particularly bold departure from the more tempting and traditional template at a time when commissioners, makers and viewers alike could all be forgiven for wanting to wallow in nostalgia and revisit what still count, however gilded the narrative has become, as past glories.