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4 hours ago
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TV
If you only watch one, make it …
England ’Til I Die
Channel 4; available now
Summed up in a sentence A horrifying documentary that follows Sussex man Liam Tomsett’s journey into the far right, as he takes to the streets in anger against asylum seekers.
What our reviewer said “It’s hard to come away from England ’Til I Die without the feeling that people like Tomsett are making things so much worse.” Hannah J Davies
Pick of the rest
70 Up
ITVX; available now
Summed up in a sentence The final instalment of the landmark docuseries following people every seven years since their childhood – and the first since its creator died.
What our reviewer said “Directed by Asif Kapadia, it has a more reflective and elegiac tone than in previous years.” Lucy Mangan
Further reading ‘It’s the Bayeux tapestry of TV!’ After six decades, the seminal series bows out with 70 Up
You may have missed …
Sterling Point
Prime Video; available now
Summed up in a sentence An escapist YA drama from the makers of Gossip Girl about a teenager who inherits a house in Canada and sets off on a soul-searching adventure.
What our reviewer said “If escapism is the brief, then Sterling Point fulfils it expertly. Sure, it doesn’t carry the intensity or the existentialism of its edgier counterparts. But I was surprised by how long I wanted to stay with these characters and inhabit their island bubble. It kept subverting my expectations. I didn’t want to go home.” Micha Frazer-Carroll
My Brilliant Career
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence A joyous, witty and beautiful adaptation of the classic feminist novel about a young woman in 1890s Australia who rebels against society’s expectations.
What our reviewer said “Sybylla, the charmingly irrepressible and irrepressibly charming heroine, is played utterly convincingly and with vim, vigour and joy by Philippa Northeast. Creator Liz Doran must have wept with happiness when they found an actor capable of bringing so much to an already glorious script.” Lucy Mangan
Further reading Inside Netflix’s horny, ‘bonkers’ take on an Australian classic the world is about to love
The Schoolgirl Terrorist?
Channel 4; out now
Summed up in a sentence A documentary that speaks to the family of Rhianan Rudd, a teenager who was the youngest girl ever charged with terror offences in the UK, and who later killed herself after the charge was dropped.
What our reviewer said “By the end of the hour you feel like you have sat through a nightmare, watching [her mother] Emily and others who loved Rhianan shout into voids that were supposedly filled with people trained and ready to help those in exactly their situation.” Lucy Mangan
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Queen at Sea
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Dementia drama starring Tom Courtenay, Juliette Binoche and Anna Calder-Marshall is startling portrait of intimacy.
What our reviewer said “The story moves from one agonisingly difficult and ambiguous situation to the next – each a terrifying point of no return, each the awful occasion of things seen and said that can’t be unseen or unsaid.” Peter Bradshaw
Pick of the rest
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Third cinematic adventure for Aardman’s resourceful ovine, in a spooky-season caper in which Shaun’s pumpkin-supersizing serum ends up in a balding farmer’s hair growth bottle.
What our reviewer said “This is another excellent family film, crammed as ever with top visual gags, great throwaway references and, of course, a homemade Heath Robinson contraption, so often to be found in Aardman films.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘He goes to the dark side’: behind the scenes on the Shaun the Sheep horror movie
De Gaulle: Liberté
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Second half of biopic of conquering French hero, with a shrewd performance by Simon Abkarian as the wartime leader’s career ascends to political dominance.
What our reviewer said “De Gaulle’s stormy bromance with Winston Churchill (who is wonderfully played by Simon Russell Beale), continues from the first half, and the film genuinely has something new to say about Churchill’s Francophilia.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Stubborn, arrogant, a genius: France’s De Gaulle epic shows up the tepidity of our politics
The Watergate Caper: Richard Nixon and the Death of the American Dream
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Documentary weaving archive clips and snippets from films old and new to draw out the highlights of the 1970s scandal that rocked the US.
What our reviewer said “It is neatly marshalled and excerpted in such a way as to explain to a bright gen Alpha kid roughly what this Watergate thing was all about, although O’Sullivan chooses not to get to bogged down in the detail and mostly surveys the highlights.” Leslie Felperin
Further reading ‘I still think it’s one of the great films of all time’: All the President’s Men turns 50
Now streaming
Smile at Last
Klassiki; available now
Summed up in a sentence Unsentimental rite of passage film about a teenager stuck in a Soviet-era youth residential facility, from which she tries to escape.
What our reviewer said “It is a mysterious parable, couched in the language of soap opera or photo-love story, depicting the Soviet state and its gruesome pretension to be caring or nurturing.” Peter Bradshaw
Books
If you only read one, make it …
End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
Reviewed by Daniel Trilling
Summed up in a sentence A sharp analysis of how the super-rich are capitalising on climate and financial chaos – and how to fight back.
What our reviewer said “In this bold, clarifying intervention … the authors map out the frightening new territory in which we find ourselves, and point to an escape.”
Further reading Naomi Klein: ‘Extreme wealth has a deranging effect. It turns you into a supremacist’
Pick of the rest
The Rouse by China Mieville
Reviewed by Stuart Kelly
Summed up in a sentence A paranormal epic of cold war espionage and family tragedy.
What our reviewer said “This new novel is maximalist, dense, disorienting and discomfiting, reflecting how surreal our reality seems to have become.”
Redwood by Ben MacIntyre
Reviewed by Oliver Bullough
Summed up in a sentence The page-turning story of a Soviet agent and his MI6 handler in revolutionary Iran.
What our reviewer said “Macintyre combines the journalist’s eye for salacious detail with a historian’s rigour … I devoured it in a single sitting.”
The Strangers by Naomi Alderman
Reviewd by Keiran Goddard
Summed up in a sentence A new species appears in this idiosyncratic examination of grief which mingles bereavement memoir with speculative fiction.
What our reviewer said “A deeply moving and wise book, asserting the painful truth that we simply do not get to choose the things that we lose.”
Farewell to Eden by Sebastian Faulks
Reviewed by Michael Donkor
Summed up in a sentence A returning British soldier is haunted by his time in Palestine in this panoramic epic set after the second world war.
What our reviewer said “The story culminates in some thrillingly clever late-stage plot developments.”
You may have missed …
Country People by Daniel Mason
Reviewed by Sarah Crown
Summed up in a sentence Set in modern-day Vermont, this follow-up to the acclaimed North Woods offers a fantastical journey through family, folktales and the world beneath our feet.
What our reviewer said “The whole thing is delivered in prose so witty and gorgeous that it calls to mind Nabokov.”
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Beabadoobee: Pylon
Dirty Hit; out now
Summed up in a sentence The Filipino-British songwriter’s fourth album sprinkles 90s alt-fuzz with disarmingly sweet melodies and an impressive host of guests including Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Turnstile’s Brendan Yates.
What our reviewer said “The album continually deploys a sweet-to-sour pivot that’s impressively well-judged … Pylon offers a compelling argument that Beabadoobee’s reach should be broader.” Alexis Petridis
Further reading Beabadoobee: ‘I don’t have time for death threats. I’ve got a mortgage to pay’
Pick of the rest
Beck: Ride Lonesome
Iliad/Capitol; out now
Summed up in a sentence On his first album in seven years, Beck keeps the quality control extremely high as he surveys mid-50s malaise in the wake of divorce.
What our reviewer said “Ride Lonesome never feels like a pale imitation or a craven attempt to recapture past glories. That’s partly because of the standard of the songwriting … melodically exquisite; every song has the requisite emotional impact.” Alexis Petridis
Further reading Beck: ‘What does a devil’s haircut look like? Anything with a lot of architecture and wild flights of fancy’
Empress Of: Dream House
Major Arcana/Giant Music; out now
Summed up in a sentence Lorely Rodriguez contemplates the meaning of home – both physical and emotional – on a gorgeously humid, hopeful album that makes a virtue of her searching nature.
What our reviewer said “For all the violent loss behind the record, it sounds amazingly airy, free and open-hearted. The directness of For Your Consideration softens to a humid atmosphere that’s bright with hope.” Laura Snapes
Further reading ‘I would love to not be underrated’: pop experimentalist Empress Of on vulnerability, fame and fun
Opus13: Mendelssohn and Grieg
Alpha Classics; out now
Summed up in a sentence The young quartet – winners of the Wigmore Hall string quartet competition – continue to impress in a recording pairing Mendelssohn and Grieg.
What our reviewer said “The Mendelssohn is nicely paired with Grieg’s Quartet No 1, a work full of insistent repetition beautifully handled here so as to create momentum rather than sap it.” Erica Jeal
On tour …
Charli xcx
Barclays Center, Brooklyn; touring the US and Europe to 24 February
Summed up in a sentence The tireless star brings her latest, somewhat over-explained album to the stage for a dazzling and euphoric show.
What our reviewer said “Charli proved doubters wrong with the most satisfying answer yet to what comes next: a full-volume tribute to pop’s euphoric potential for obliteration that substantiated the album’s most potent themes … a thesis statement of artistic evolution that seamlessly integrated her past and present.” Adrian Horton
Further reading Charli xcx: Music, Fashion, Film review – slippery search into selfhood that hits just as hard as Brat
