Listen up students of Cambridge; an English Fresher, newly emerged from prelims, I am consequently endowed with all the self-congratulatory wisdom that sitting a whole two mock papers entails. So here are some tips on how to ace your exams:

1. Watch more TV.

And that’s all I’ve got. Granted, this probably won’t teach you about anything on your question paper. Nor, I concede, will it bestow you with some innate ability to work more, sleep less, or travel back in time and tell your Michaelmas-self to stay away from the temptation of Cindies.

However, if you were to swap those now-and-then Facebook checks and every-so-often Instagram scrolls for just 30 minutes of indulgence in the other-worldliness of television, you might be a little bit happier. Television is an increasingly innovative medium, harnessed by some of the brightest minds in the creative industry. As such, we are being blessed with more worthy, more on-demand content than your average cinephile could ever hope to consume in one lifetime.

From Netflix originals, to crowdsourced Youtube productions, and even from our hallowed BBC, there is a University Library’s worth of wonderful new programmes waiting patiently online, ready to be devoured by the student population - in bitesize, revision break-appropriate chunks, of course. For, if being an arts student has taught me anything, it is this: if you are going to procrastinate, you might as well do it properly. So here I am: nobly devoting my exam-free days to bringing you some on-screen suggestions that are deserving of you dragging yourself away from your highlighters and flashcards.

This week, as any English student worth their Collected Works will tell you, has seen the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, and with it a whole host of related programming. Previously the chance to perform Shakespeare lured our most successful screen actors to the stage. Now, the best and the brightest of the British acting industry are being brought back to television by increased budgets, innovative directors and production companies that are not afraid to say ‘Of course the people of Great Britain want their living rooms graced with two hours of renaissance verse’. I am here thinking of The Hollow Crown series, which is on BBC iPlayer until Friday, in anticipation of the new series which will premiere on the 7th May. These four stand-alone adaptions of Shakespeare’s history plays flesh out the medieval world in ways that are not possible in the confines of a theatre. Yet the draw is undeniably the cast; you may come for the recognisable names of Ben Whishaw and Tom Hiddleston, but you should stay for the Shakespearean heavyweight, Simon Russell Beale, who makes the sometimes irritating character of Falstaff a cuddly comedic joy. We may hope that the next instalment, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Judy Dench and Sophie Okonedo (currently being astoundingly sharp in BBC’s Undercover), will be just as good.

I do understand that it might take a particular kind of person (namely an English fresher with a term of Shakespeare ahead of them) to devote 8 hours of their week to the history plays. Shakespeare Live! at the RSC (also courtesy of the BBC) is offered as a more accessible means of joining in the celebrations. This star-studded extravaganza consists off two and half hours of short tributes which can - and should - be dipped in and out of. It is therefore unfortunate that the very structure of the programme is what lets it down. I expected the slick party atmosphere of the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony; a thespian carnival which twirls you expertly from piece to piece, immersing you in the celebration of Britain’s most beloved playwright. Instead, this format felt like a run of the mill variety show, with the hosts - the entirely capable Catherine Tate and David Tennant - constricted by the stilted script.

On the whole, it seemed geared towards viral video compatibility (a consequence of the Jimmy Fallon/James Corden effect), but there are plenty of clips worth watching. Other highlights include Meera Syal and her real-life husband Sanjeev Bhaskar as Beatrice and Benedick, Paapa Essiedu’s youthful yet intelligent Hamlet (and the gleeful restraint of his twitching mouth as he fleetingly threatens to corpse at the audience’s laughter) and Gregory Porter’s beautiful rendition of the final song from Twelfth Night, ‘When I Was And Little Tiny Boy’.

If that all that still feels a little overwhelming, you can always join in with Horrible Histories: Sensational Shakespeare; if laughing at Bottom jokes for half an hour won’t cheer you up this Easter term, then I’m honestly not sure what will. At the very least you can claim that it’s educational.