Liane Moriarty is one of the world’s pre-eminent writers of deliciously dark, bitingly contemporary novels that reign for months in the bestseller lists and go on to be adapted into buzz-worthy TV dramas. HBO’s adaptation of Big Little Lies was a genuine TV phenomenon, and if the more recent Nine Perfect Strangers didn’t garner as much popular and critical approval, the star-packed cast led by Nicole Kidman attracted plenty of headlines. Understandably, then, expectations are high – note the immediately post-Strictly prime-time scheduling – for this glossy adaptation of the Australian author’s bestselling 2021 domestic noir about a quartet of grown-up siblings who begin to suspect their cantankerous father (Sam Neill) might be behind the disappearance of their recently retired, tennis academy-owner mother (Annette Bening) when she goes missing on a trip to the mall.
Even if things get off to a slightly slow start, the opening episodes don’t disappoint. All the familiar tropes are there – luxurious lifestyles, marital rifts, nosy neighbours – in a tension-cranking plot. And the setting – supposedly Florida but shot on Australia’s Gold Coast – is gorgeous.
A “pudding you can eat for breakfast” is the main draw in the opening episode of John Torode and Lisa Faulkner’s returning series. The chocolate and orange traybake, a variation on bread-and-butter pudding, looks particularly delicious. It’s the first live show, and the 15 celebrities (Chris McCausland, Toyah Willcox, Paul Merson and Nick Knowles among them) and their professional partners must dance for the judges’ approval for the first time.
No one will be voted off, but the pressure is still on: all scores do carry over and influence the first ejection next week. Thousands of miles of disused railway line wind through Britain, overgrown, buried or occasionally given new life as leisure trails. This series revisits six of the best, beginning with a lost line from Bath to Bournemouth that for 90 years rattled through some of England’s loveliest countryside.
A powerful three-part series about the racism and exploitation suffered by black talent in the music industry, and efforts by campaigners to win compensation. It begins with a look at the poor treatment of pioneers such as Bessie Smith, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, who made millions for their record labels but saw little of the profits. The sprawling Northamptonshire estate, ancestral home of the Spencer family and final resting place of Diana, Princess of Wales, gets the full historic homes treatment here.
With 500 years’ worth of amassing wealth, impressing Royalty and making hay with the great and the good, there’s no shortage of extravagance – or, indeed, tragedy. The nail-biting psychological thriller continues as barrister Ingrid (Everything I Know About Love’s Emma Appleton) sets out to prove her friend Belinda’s death wasn’t an accident. But things take a sinister turn when, with police dismissing her suspicions, Webster (Colin Morgan) turns up offering to help.
The plot of this Raymond Chandler adaptation verges on the inexplicable: it’s a mélange of murder, blackmail, gambling and pornography. But Howard Hawks’s film noir carries it off magnificently, thanks to the electric chemistry between Humphrey Bogart, playing private eye Philip Marlowe, and Lauren Bacall, as the sister of the blackmailed victim. Be sure to stay with this one all the way.
Ignore the thin romantic plot – involving Gene Kelly as an exuberant painter, Nina Foch as his wealthy patron and Leslie Caron as his French love interest – and lose yourself in the irresistible dance numbers directed by musical mastermind Vincente Minnelli (Meet Me in St Louis, Gigi) and set to top tunes by George Gershwin, which include I Got Rhythm and Love is Here to Stay. Also, the costumes are delightful. Ridley Scott’s historical epic pits Matt Damon and Adam Driver’s Norman noblemen against each other in a trial by combat, the first having accused the second of raping his wife (a quietly tremendous Jodie Comer, who stands to be burned at the stake if it’s decided she lied).
This is a knotty, stimulating drama with a piquant MeToo edge; far more pleasingly hefty and understated than Scott’s recents offerings, House of Gucci and Napoleon. Pedro Almodóvar teams up with muse Penélope Cruz for the seventh time for this sumptuous, provocative drama about two women (Cruz and Milena Smit) who meet in hospital after falling pregnant. Far from a tale of happy endings and new beginnings, what ensues is a tense foray into anxiety as the women begin to question whether their babies are really theirs.
Almodóvar’s 2019 film Pain and Glory follows. There are few things quite as soothing as watching Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer fish in a scenic lake. The seventh series of their heartwarming travelogue opens tonight with the pair in the quaint Norfolk village of Rocklands St Peter, where they are hoping to catch Tench in the nearby pond of Rocklands Mere.
The fishing itself is incidental, of course: a mere excuse for the comedians to hang out. As always, the show’s magic exists in the space between silliness and pathos. At one point, Mortimer slips into a poignant story about seeing his mother’s body in her casket.
She never wore make-up, he says, but she had been given a posthumous makeover, which made him sad. “What make-up would you like?” asks Whitehouse. “Full face paint,” replies Mortimer, not missing a beat.
“A tiger.” It is remarkable how, after five years, it all still feels so effortlessly charming. Later in the episode they retire to a local pub, where they reduce each other to hysterics at the sight of Ted the dog looking like he’s had one too many.
Their laughter is contagious – like you’re in the presence of old friends. The boilerplate detective drama reaches its globe-trotting series finale. In Munich, John Simm’s grizzled Grace faces down Sandy (Clare Calbraith), the ex-wife he thought was dead.
Meanwhile, in France, the mysterious death of a businessman puts his glamorous Brighton-based widow Cassie (Laura Haddock) in danger. Yet she’s not as helpless as she looks. The deliciously absurd train thriller chugs on.
After last week’s cliffhanger collision, tonight Joe (Joe Cole) must work out which passengers are in league with the hackers. This week’s gory ending is just about gripping enough to keep the show on the rails. Reality star and current Strictly Come Dancing contestant Pete Wicks, actor John Barrowman and journalist Rachel “sister of Boris” Johnson are among the recruits facing the ex-special forces instructors.
Tonight, the celebrity contestants fly to New Zealand in order to stage a gruelling hostage rescue mission. This timely profile of the Princess of Wales follows her recent video, where she shared that she is “doing what I can to stay cancer free” after the end of her chemotherapy treatment. As you may have guessed, it tells the story of the Princess’s life through her most iconic photos.
All analysed, of course, by Channel 5’s roster of royal experts. There are shades of Sex and the City sequel And Just Like That..
. to this belated eight-part coda to The Best Man Holiday, the 2013 romcom (itself a sequel) which followed the romantic dramas of four black American friends. Premiering with a double-bill.
This delightfully bawdy four-part adaptation of Henry Fielding’s novel premiered on ITVX last year. Tonight’s two-part terrestrial debut gives audiences another chance to meet Solly McLeod’s titular orphan, an aspiring gentleman with a cartoonish vice for lust. His romance with childhood friend Sophia (Sophie Wilde) doesn’t quite sizzle, but there are enough laughs to make up for it.
Martin Ritt’s classic drama took its inspiration from works by William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. Paul Newman plays drifter Ben Quick, who earns the approval of rich Will Varner (Orson Welles) and devotes himself to his daughter (Joanne Woodward, who would later marry Newman for real). The film was plagued by reports of animosity between Ritt and Welles on set, but it doesn’t affect the great acting.
“You’re a fat loser and you have body odour!” Jack Black gives a top-notch comedy performance as wannabe rock star Dewey Finn, who impersonates his supply teacher best friend (The White Lotus’s Mike White) to make some quick cash. Inspired by his student’s love for classical music, Dewey decides they’re perfect to help him win Battle of the Bands. Richard Linklater directs with a witty touch, and the young actors are brilliant.
A superior sequel to 1991 film The Addams Family, director Barry Sonnenfield’s second entry has a notably darker sense of fun that’s more divorced from its 1960s sitcom source. Subversive humour and character development add depth to the ghoulish trappings, and an excellent ensemble cast (including Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci) are more than the sum of their parts. Pixar’s animation tip-toes up to subject matter where most films rightfully fear to tread – it’s a zingy family adventure about what it means to be dead.
When its young hero crosses over to the Great Beyond during the Día de Muertos festival, he must find his way back by daybreak or risk being trapped. Its characters may be skeletons, but this colourful adventure brims with life. Pixar’s stellar animated short, Lou, is on beforehand at 3.
50pm. Ireland is, we’re told, “known for its breathtaking landscapes and warm welcome”. A few other things as well of course, but with Dermot O’Leary returning to his ancestral home (he describes himself as “Irish but not from Ireland”) for a foodie daytime series produced in association with Tourism Ireland, we were never going to be in for a warts-and-all tour of the Emerald Isle.
Still, this is a charming venture with O’Leary as disarming as ever; his youth spent getting work experience in kitchens also comes in handy. He spends this first episode of six in County Wexford, where he whiled away many childhood holidays camping and eating banana sandwiches on the sandy beaches. Accompanied by local chefs and farmers, he visits a strawberry farm, gets messy with fresh crab, makes butter from a dairy herd and tries out hurling with the stars of Wexford’s storied team, the Yellow Bellies.
With his mother and father (a hurling champion in his youth) watching on for the latter, this has an emotional heft unusual for most travelogues. The food – crab linguine, strawberry tiramisu – looks just as delicious as the scenery. Michelle Ackerley peels off the discount stickers to ask whether the savings proposed by supermarkets are actually worth the bother: does the packaging disguise the size of the item? And are the contents of, say, dog food, coconut milk or chicken nuggets, quite what they seem? More seasonal fare is given the Jamie Oliver treatment in the final edition of another bright and breezy series.
This time he’s combining tagliatelle and squash, mixing up a mushroom curry, making use of homegrown celeriac and rustling up a blackberry, apple and pear cobbler. Mozart meets the love of his life in Constanze Weber, much to his father’s dismay, with the romance inspiring perhaps his finest opera. However, as an array of famous fans, musicians and academics attest in this documentary, The Marriage of Figaro is met with hostility among many of his wealthy, powerful patrons.
The second half of this sun-drenched slice of dramatic escapism (continuing until Wednesday) cranks up the tension as wannabe sleuth Beth (Jo Joyner) pulls back from the detective work in the face of opposition from Natasha (Angela Griffin) and Sylvie (Tamzin Outhwaite) – who duly go rogue anyway and uncover some damning CCTV footage from the tennis club. Thugs attacking a hotel housing asylum seekers in Merseyside? Mobeen Azhar’s investigation uncovers disturbing parallels between events in Kirkby in February last year and this summer’s riots – could one have provided a blueprint for the other? Continuing tomorrow and airing on BBC One on Wednesday, this is an alarming exposé of online misinformation promoting racism. The poet talks frankly, movingly and often amusingly about her remarkable life.
Adopted as a baby by members of the Communist Party, she navigated racism, bullying and a motorbike accident to reach a career pinnacle as Poet Laureate for Scotland between 2016 and 2021. The US seems to have a monopoly on road-trip films – perhaps understandably given its sprawling size. But the UK has its gems – Soft Top Hard Shoulder, Butterfly Kiss – and George Jaques’s touching drama is a worthy addition to the genre.
It follows two London teenagers (Jamie Flatters and Keenan Munn-Francis) who drive up to Scotland to find themselves. There’s a clever use of binary opposition (white = good, black = bad, etc, etc) in this otherwise drab paranoid thriller from director Irwin Winkler (who produced Raging Bull, The Right Stuff, and Goodfellas). Likeable Sandra Bullock is sympathetic as the damsel in distress in a story about a computer programmer whose identity is erased after she accidentally comes into possession of secret government information.
This goofy yet heartfelt coming-of-age comedy from Adam Rehmeier has echoes of Dazed and Confused and Empire Records. Set in the summer of 1991, it stars Conor Sherry and Gabriel LaBelle as two pals working at a community pool snack shack in Nebraska City. Mika Abdalla is hilarious as the good-looking new girl in town/lifeguard who upends their plans.
Breaking Bad’s David Costabile co-stars. Fifteen seasons, multiple judges and a new home channel later, and still the baking juggernaut rolls on in a flurry of icing sugar, sabotaged ice-cream, twee Union Jack bunting and plentiful yeast-related disasters. There’s been grumbles in some camps that Bake Off has lost its shine in recent years – or, since it swapped the BBC for Channel 4, leaving fan-favourite judge Mary Berry behind – but only time will tell if it can recapture the easygoing magic that made it such a global hit the first time around.
Old hat Paul Hollywood is back as chief judge alongside Prue Leith and hosts Alison Hammond (who made for a delightful presence last season) and Noel Fielding, with 12 new aspiring bakers (ranging from the ages of 19 to 71, with nurses, mechanics, fashion designers and academics among the day-job titles) entering the tent with dreams of glory. First up is Cake Week, where the bakers rustle up a loaf cake, a mini Battenberg technical and a tricky “illusion” showstopper. Who will be crowned 2024’s first Star Baker? Beforehand, former winner Nadiya Hussain rustles up more savvy leftover-recipes in Cook Once Eat Twice on BBC Two at 7.
30pm. During the pandemic, Ellen DeGeneres was facing her own crisis: the former scion of US TV stood accused of bullying on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Attempting to brush it under the carpet, For Your Approval is the final stand-up special of her career.
Expect candid reflections on life since getting “kicked out of show business”. The Mancunian school drama certainly isn’t winning awards for believable storylines anytime soon, but it’s entertaining. Tonight, Donte (Adam Thomas) pushes for a promotion and dinner lady Nicky (Kym Marsh) is handed another plate full of stress when an old friend shows up.
The first of two Colombian odysseys tonight (see Jamali Maddix, below), as Kemp continues his enjoyably juicy docu-series about the Mafia’s place in Britain. He digs into the country’s lucrative cocaine trade, learns about its presence in Britain and meets the son of notorious cartel boss Gilberto Rodriguez. Adventurer Ed Stafford kicks off his quest to “rescue” British fatherhood by taking six father-and-son pairs deep into Belize’s jungles for six episodes of gruelling survival challenges.
Tonight’s opener tasks the dads with jumping off a 25- foot-high cliff to their kids below – just your average Tuesday, then. Dror Moreh’s gripping foreign policy docu-series concludes with a look at the US’s role in Syria in the mid-10s, and criticism levelled at Barack Obama over his decision to not intervene despite the country’s ensuing humanitarian disaster. All eight episodes – covering Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur and Libya – are on iPlayer.
The comedian channels Louis Theroux for the second episode of his engrossing docu-series taking in everything from peadophile hunters to dodgy pastors. Tonight, he’s in Columbia to meet the men behind a movement pushing for US women to “treat their men like kings”. Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz dazzle in this comic gem that simultaneously satirises and celebrates film-making.
Cruz is director and critics’ darling Lola Cuevas, hired to rescue a vanity project funded by an insecure tycoon (José Luiz Gómez) intent on securing his legacy; Banderas is the actor tasked with bringing its lead character to life. Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn direct. Joe Talbot won Best Director at Sundance for this terrific debut.
It springs off the turbulent real-life story of its lead, newcomer Jimmie Fails, who spent his childhood ricocheting between homelessness and squatting in the house his grandfather (played here by Danny Glover) built, before the family were priced out. A yearning, lyrical gem that rewards multiple viewings. The third remake of the 1937 William A Wellman original is a triumph.
Bradley Cooper plays Jack, a booze-addled country singer who meets Ally, a waitress with big dreams, played by Lady Gaga (responsible for the fantastic, Oscar-winning soundtrack). They shack up together as they try to negotiate the music industry – as well as their fragile, budding love. On-the-spectrum detectives have comprehensively replaced the traditional hard-drinking, music-loving mavericks of classic TV crime drama.
From Sherlock and The Bridge to Professor T, the socially awkward genius has become the new cliché of on-screen crime fighting. It also proves the perfect basis for very entertaining comedy in this new series starring Peep Show’s David Mitchell. He plays John “Ludwig” (his setter’s pseudonym) Taylor, an anxiety-crippled puzzle-writer forced out into the real world of criminal investigation when his identical-twin brother, a senior police detective, suddenly goes missing.
Conveniently, he leaves behind nothing but a notebook packed with near-uncrackable cryptic clues (as you do) that contain the secret to his whereabouts. Even Mitchell’s most ardent admirers wouldn’t describe him as a great actor, but he puts his established comedy persona to very good use here, and he’s given classy support by the likes of Anna Maxwell Martin as Lucy, the gung-ho sister-in-law searching for her husband who’s determined to keep Ludwig on the trail despite his innumerable neuroses. Whether you think the story of an Alabama prison officer swept off her feet, and into criminality, by a violent offender 20 years her junior is likely to be “a disgusting romance novel” or a testament to the depths of human folly, will probably determine whether you stick with this real-life potboiler to the end.
An explosive six-part documentary profiling Vince McMahon, the larger-than-life US wrestling promoter and former head of the globe-spanning WWE franchise. Allegations of sexual exploitation and human trafficking are addressed, with Hulk Hogan and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson among the muscly contributors. High minded but presented in a gently “will-they, won’t they” format, the series following the Parole Board as they decide the fate of prisoners (it was recorded before the Government’s “40 per cent of sentence” scheme) returns.
First up, tough decisions about two men convicted of serious violent offences. The last time Grand Designs featured a cliff-edge-property owner with dreams of creating an architectural marvel, it turned intoa 12-year tragedy. So Kevin McCloud must have been rubbing his hands with glee when tonight’s couple showed up with plans for their obsolete coastguard station in East Yorkshire.
Factor in Covid, and you’ve got jeopardy by the bucketload. Spectacular scenery and close-knit communities are a common theme in this four-parter looking at the UK’s smallest offshore enclaves. The series opens with an episode travelling the length of the UK, from Fair Isle in the Shetlands to – 700 miles to the south – Tresco in the Scillies, via the Hebridean Isle of Gigha and Northern Ireland’s Cockle Island.
Subtitled The Mysterious Disappearance of the Bitcoin Creator, this engrossing documentary film looks into the origins of the lucrative digital currency, launched in 2009 by a mysterious character known only as Satoshi Nakamoto, who disappeared two years later with almost a million Bitcoin. Where did he go, and what were his intentions? This Anglo-Yugoslav period film, directed by Jack Cardiff (cinematographer on The Red Shoes), stars Richard Widmark as a Viking con man, who sets off on a series of maritime adventures to find a mythic golden bell ahead of his rival, the leader of the Moors, played by Sidney Poitier. There is a slight collision of styles between Widmark’s japing and Poitier’s deadly seriousness, but it’s a good romp (with strong performances).
This pacy English noir, directed by John Gilling (The Shadow of the Cat) and based on a story by journalist Ruth Adam, follows a criminal’s wife (Jane Hylton) as she attempts to build a new life for herself after her husband (Derek Bond) finally gets packed off to prison. But when he gets out, all hell breaks loose, and a whole new cast of dodgy characters enter the fray. Dora Bryan and Michael Balfour co-star.
Michael Sarnoski’s drama about a backwoodsman trying to recover his kidnapped truffle pig from nefarious types could have been Taken meets Babe. Instead, Nicolas Cage ditches the ham and carries this sinuously intelligent, consistently surprising tale – it’s not so much a thriller as a helpless sigh of sadness, built around a masterclass of restraint from Cage, who has never been on better form. Alex Wolff co-stars.
After so much misinformation surrounding the events of October 7 last year, when Hamas terrorists murdered, raped or kidnapped more than 1,400 people in an audacious assault on Israel, this documentary will help you understand the events being played out in its aftermath. Yariv Mozer’s film focuses on what happened at the Nova music festival in Israel’s Negev Desert, where Hamas murdered 364 young partygoers and took 44 more as hostages, some of whom have since died. Using CCTV and mobile phone footage taken by concertgoers and first responders, as well as interviews with survivors, Mozer builds a minute-by-minute account of how a festival filled with music fans – some of whom innocently mistook rockets flying overhead for fireworks – turned into a massacre.
We witness the terror of the victims, as heard in calls to emergency services, and evidence of the Hamas violence. Perhaps the most disquieting footage comes from the terrorists’ bodycams, showing them behaving as if on a lads’ night out. The film is a shocking document and a tough watch, but a necessary one.
The latest from Ryan Murphy (Glee, Dahmer) is a super-creepy horror drama set in smalltown America. Detective Lois Tryon (Niecy Nash-Betts) is investigating a string of heinous crimes – cue lots of religious imagery and supernatural vibes – but she feels they are eerily personal, and turns to Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond), a nun, for help. Lesley Manville also stars as the nurse caring for Tryon’s husband.
First two (of 10) episodes drop today, then weekly. “An agnostic podcast host and an unconventional rabbi walk into a party” sounds like the beginning of a gag. In fact it’s the premise of Erin Foster’s undemanding romantic comedy starring Kristen Bell as Joanne and Adam Brody as Noah, the unlikely pair who feel an instant spark.
But there are many obstacles to overcome – families, mostly – as a will-they-won’t-they story plays over 10 episodes. Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould return with a new series of art sleuthing; first up is a flower picture, which its owner, American artist Jeffrey Kroll, believes is by Piet Mondrian. If it is, it’s worth £250,000; if it isn’t, at least it will look lovely on his wall.
The cosy drama continues as Mrs Hall (Anna Madeley) has to serve two bosses in Siegfried (Samuel West) and equally sure-of-himself ARP warden Mr Bosworth (Jeremy Swift). Helen (Rachel Shenton), meanwhile, is keen for James (Nicholas Ralph) to be a hands-on dad. Another enjoyable adventure – played entirely for laughs – with Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson as amateur detectives Terry and Gemma Bremmer, in which they investigate a double murder at a rugby club.
It’s packed with guest stars having fun, including Sarah Hadland, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Murder They Hope writer and creator Jason Cook. Danny Brocklehurst and Joseph Gilgun’s oddball collection of duckers and divers return for a sixth series. After a teaser start concerning old foe Manolito (Rashid Sabriti), it’s a madcap episode involving a stolen FA Cup and a ferry dash to Dublin for Vinnie (Gilgun) and his crew.
The humour is broad, and the jokes often wonderfully ribald. Orson Welles’s brilliant, brash and sexy noir was made as the director was in the process of breaking up with his star, the show-stoppingly beautiful Rita Hayworth. Welles plays a seaman who gets caught up in a murder plot when he is hired to work on a luxurious yacht.
The plot comes to a smashing climax in a bizarre hall of mirrors. of his sprawling Vietnam War epic is a magisterial, genre-defining masterpiece. Martin Sheen is exceptional as the soldier sent to kill Marlon Brando’s American colonel.
For more Coppola, Tucker: The Man and His Dream is on Film4 at 4.10pm tomorrow, followed by Hearts of Darkness at 12.55am.
His latest film Megalopolis, meanwhile, is in cinemas from Friday 27. (1995) Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as 007 has dated well; the 17th in the franchise is still one of the slickest, most thrilling Bonds. From its bungee-jump opening to the explosive denouement in Cuba, it retains a rapid pace, as Bond and IT expert Natalya (Izabella Scorupco) try to stop former MI6 agent Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) from looting the Bank of England.
Also on Sunday at 4.30pm; Tomorrow Never Dies airs on Friday 27 at 10.45pm.
Executive produced by Kim Kardashian (but don’t let that put you off), this three-part essay on one of cinema’s legendary figures calls upon a number of Elizabeth Taylor’s intimates to tell the story of a precocious professional talent derailed but never defeated by personal setbacks. Box-setted on the iPlayer, it begins with a focus on fame, tracing her early years under contract at MGM where she was one of the few to stand up to the monstrous Louis B Mayer. It also covers an abusive first marriage, bumpy second one and happy but ill-fated third – with Eddie Fisher and Richard Burton looming on the horizon – not that Taylor would ever define herself by her romantic partners.
James House’s series is a little too indulgent of its starry contributors (Sharon Stone, Joan Collins and George Hamilton among them), and rides out a sometimes overproduced approach and overbearing, occasionally ill-fitting soundtrack. The result is an invigorating tribute to a defiant star who eventually gained control of her life and career following years of manipulation by studios, exploitation by journalists and ravages of addiction. Somehow, it is a heartening underdog tale about a Hollywood megastar.
Tyson Fury aside, few contemporary British boxers can hold a candle to the quartet featured here in their marriage of in-ring gifts with an eccentric, engaging and utterly distinct charisma. The trajectories of Londoners Lennox Lewis, Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank are thrillingly documented in this four-parter featuring extensive, enlightening contributions from all four – each a fascinating study in contrast to today. This quirkily charming excavation of local superstition and fake news may not quite stick the landing, but the journey is worth 30 minutes of your time.
A journalist and repair-man join forces to solve a mystery which has perplexed the residents of Omagh for months: what is the source of the low hum, present if barely perceptible, around the town? The truth is out there. Carol Klein is wowed by late summer colours, Joe Swift admires an imaginative and lush use of urban space, and Frances Tophill returns to Devon’s Powderham Castle to consider how to encourage butterflies and pollinators while planting a new herb garden and collecting seedlings. Not a rehash of the depredations of Jimmy Savile, but instead a parade of marginally more palatable drink-and-drugs tomfoolery, promotional shenanigans and superstar power plays as recalled by former hosts including David “Diddy” Hamilton and such diverse performers as Cheryl Baker and Arthur Brown.
With punk waning and new wave on the rise, 1979 proves fertile territory for Guy Garvey’s latest trawl through the archives, with long-buried television performances from Roxy Music, the Police, Tina Turner and Lindisfarne. Underlining his position at the top of the chat-show tree, Norton kicks off a new series with serious star wattage undercut, as is customary, by a sardonic British wit. Expect Demi Moore (plugging body horror The Substance), Lady Gaga (Joker: Folie à Deux) and Colin Farrell (The Penguin) to get a mischievous prod from Richard Ayoade.
The annoying thing about Spider-Man director is that it should be a lot of fun: it’s led by Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt and George Clooney, after all. But even their talents can’t rescue the weak plot, which follows their pair of rival underworld fixers who are forced to work on the same job. It’s sweary, macho and packed with OTT action scenes induced by rampant drug-taking; somewhat like a teenage boy’s dream film.
Charlie Chaplin’s debut feature (as director) is rightly remembered as one of the greatest films of the silent era. Chaplin plays the Tramp, a down-on-his-luck figure who roams the streets in messy clothes searching for food – until, one day, he happens upon a baby. Chaplin finds the boy (played as he gets older by child star Jackie Coogan) and decides to raise him.
It’s touching and tender – but still full of Chaplin’s typical slapstick humour. The unbelievable true story of Nicholas Winton, an ordinary Londoner who became known as the “British Schindler” after saving 600 Jewish children in the Second World War, is turned into a (of Black Mirror and Slow Horses). Winton is played as a young man by Johnny Flynn (best known for his brilliant turn in The Motive and the Cue on the West End) and as an older one by Anthony Hopkins, who brings his characteristic light wit and talent to the part.
The tale begins in 1938, when Winton, born and raised in Hampstead and working as a stockbroker in the City, travels across Europe to Czechoslovakia to help more than 600 children, most of them Jewish, to evacuate to British foster homes, all while Hitler’s army pressed against their country’s borders. Winton’s heroic story was finally told in 1988, when he featured on the BBC magazine show That’s Life! – the children he saved, now adults, present and weeping in the audience; an emotional moment that forms the strongest set-piece in this elegant drama. The strong supporting cast includes Helena Bonham Carter, Alex Sharp and Samantha Spiro.
Andrew Legge’s thrilling mockumentary, shot with vintage cameras, offers a terrifying glimpse into what the world could have become had fascism prevailed in the Second World War. The Lola of the film’s name is a machine that can intercept TV and radio broadcasts from the future, created by sisters Thomasina (Emma Appleton) and Mars (Stefanie Martini), that slowly becomes an instrument for destruction. This ravishing period piece marked theatre director Josie Rourke’s film debut.
Adapted from John Guy’s 2004 biography, it explores the internal whirrings of the Scottish monarch’s early reign, rising above the martyr-temptress image of legend. Saoirse Ronan delivers a thrilling turn as Mary, while Margot Robbie swaps her Barbie-tastic blonde locks for a red wig to play Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth I..
