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TV
If you only watch one, make it …
Funboys
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence This brilliantly daft tale of twentysomething friends from a fictional Northern Irish town returns – with a major cameo from Steve Coogan.
What our reviewer said “This level of silliness belies some serious comic architecture. These boys may be idiots, but the men behind them are nothing of the sort.” Rachel Aroesti
Further reading Alan Partridge is more popular than me – that’s a given
Pick of the rest
Queen James
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence A fabulously entertaining look at the male lovers of Britain’s first king from historian Gareth Russell.
What our reviewer said “Russell definitely has the gift.” Jack Seale
Should I Marry a Murderer?
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence The astonishing real-life tale of a woman who helped police to investigate her killer fiance – only for them to let her down badly.
What our reviewer said “We should rename the true crime genre: ‘The catalogue of ways misogynists and the patriarchy have set up this world to hurt, humiliate and destroy us.’” Lucy Mangan
OnlyFans: Inside the Machine
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence A preposterously bleak film about the hordes of men who have turned the sex platform into a sleazy nightmare – with big tech turning a blind eye.
What our reviewer said “What the film does brilliantly is position all of this in the crosshairs of the wider social moment.” Stuart Heritage
Further reading The malignant rise of OnlyFans managers
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Effi o Blaenau
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Blistering Welsh-language film with Leisa Gwenllian as a force of nature in this big screen version of Gary Owen’s one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott.
What our reviewer said “It is a tremendous performance from Gwenllian as Effi, pursuing what appears to be the dissolute life of irresponsible adulthood and yet, when finally and inevitably coming into contact with authority figures from whom she needs help, Effi regresses to a desperately childlike state.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Sex, austerity and mugs of vodka: how the Greek myth Iphigenia became a Welsh-language film sensation
Pick of the rest
Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Dreamy adaptation of Woolf’s novel about a headstrong young Edwardian woman takes flight under Tina Gharavi’s direction, with Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders among the ensemble cast.
What our reviewer said “What emerges is a wayward, unworldly fantasia, a four-leaf clover of a film – or even five-leaf; rather beautifully designed and photographed, flavoured with a wistful, unexpectedly Germanic kind of romanticism.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘More relevant now than ever’: how Virginia Woolf recaptured the cultural zeitgeist
Cactus Pears
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Subtle story of forbidden love between two young men, Anand and Balya, and their humble dreams of happiness in India, in an assured directorial debut from Rohan Kanawade.
What our reviewer said “The cactus pears of the title are a shy gift to Anand from Balya; he has symbolically removed their prickles in advance, a touching act which only points up how the prickles are not to be removed so easily in any other aspect of their lives.” Peter Bradshaw
Killing Anna
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Haunting documentary tells how Syrian academic Annsar Shahoud created an online persona to flush out the suspected perpetrator of Syria’s Tadamon massacre.
What our reviewer said “It’s not clear if she and her collaborator, genocide studies professor Uğur Ümit Üngör, are part of the European vigilante networks that inspired last year’s fictional feature Ghost Trail. But the courageous, haunted and psychologically smudgy nature of this work is plain to see here.” Phil Hoad
Further reading Massacre in Tadamon: how two academics hunted down a Syrian war criminal
Now streaming …
Hokum
Prime Video; available now
Summed up in a sentence Adam Scott plays a writer retreating to the remote Irish hotel in which his parents spent their honeymoon in this eccentric and blackly comic shocker.
What our reviewer said “It is an amusing and gruesome premise, which writer-director Damian McCarthy stretches out into a convoluted, bizarre extended narrative involving two separate hospital stays.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Adam Scott: ‘There’s nothing wrong with being told that you resemble Tom Cruise’
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens
Reviewed by Diana Evans
Summed up in a sentence A woman tries to make her last day of maternity leave perfect in this comic rollercoaster about the trials of motherhood.
What our reviewer said “Amid the humour and viscera of marital squabbles, accidental texts, a mysterious tampon and breastfeeding on the toilet, serious issues are addressed about the modern woman’s practical and emotional responses to ‘having it all’, and whether any real contentment might be found down that path.”
Pick of the rest
Togetherness by Rowan Hooper
Reviewed by Philip Ball
Summed up in a sentence A brilliant study of cooperation in nature.
What our reviewer said “Togetherness is not an attempt to make evolution cuddlier and more palatable; rather, it is a corrective deeply informed by what we have learned since Darwin about how nature works.”
Morbid by Saul Justin Newman
Reviewed by Rachel Clarke
Summed up in a sentence An eye-popping debunking of longevity pseudoscience.
What our reviewer said “In 2010 in Tokyo, the renowned supercentenarian Sogen Kato, official age 111, was revealed to be a mummified husk in his family’s home – where he’d lain dead for at least 30 years while a relative continued to claim his pension.”
Further reading The troubling rise of longevity fixation syndrome
A Little Bit Bad by Cassandra Neyenesch
Reviewed by Daisy Hildyard
Summed up in a sentence A tragicomic tale of an American woman’s illicit romance that is also a gripping murder mystery.
What our reviewer said “I absolutely enjoyed every single page. The plot is constructed for compulsive reading: the two storylines are told in interspersed chapters, and as the affair begins to cool, the murder mystery gets going. The central couple are sparkling and adorable.”
Disability by David Turner
Reviewed by Lucy Webster
Summed up in a sentence A revelatory new history of the struggle for disabled rights.
What our reviewer said “One sign of the devaluing of disability activism and history is the fact that none of the personalities in the book are household names. Disabled suffragette May Billinghurst surely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the Pankhursts.”
You may have missed …
The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly
Reviewed by Natasha Walter
Summed up in a sentence The winner of this year’s Walter Scott prize explores fascism and complicity through the eyes of a mute autistic girl being treated by Dr Hans Asperger at the Vienna Children’s Hospital during the second world war.
What our reviewer said “This is a book that walks a tightrope between sentimentality and honesty, between realism and imagination, and creates something spirited and memorable as it does so.” Natasha Walter
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Olivia Rodrigo: You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The pop star returns with a witty, intelligent and occasionally painful album that pivots away from the bratty pop-punk of her previous records to take on 80s new wave.
What our reviewer said “The real identity of the subject of the album might be the least interesting thing about it. Parsing the songs for clues seems besides the point: it’s a spectacularly accomplished pop album whoever it is about.” Alexis Petridis
Further reading If CMAT is an affront to the male gaze and Olivia Rodrigo is indulging it, how exactly should women dress?
Pick of the rest
Brahms: Violin Sonatas
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong bring assurance and grace to these three violin sonatas written by Brahms in his creative prime.
What our reviewer said “The longevity of Ehnes and Armstrong’s partnership pays dividends here in performances that exude an effortless rightness.” Clive Paget
Ibeyi: Offering
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The fourth album from sisters and musical duo Ibeyi offers a heady brew of songs with strong melodies, celestial R&B and soaring vocals that walk the line between otherworldly mysticism and grinding edge.
What our reviewer said “Fusing the influences of their Cuban percussionist father and Parisian upbringing, the twins sing in multiple languages, summoning ancient lore over intricate beats, transcendent harmonies and brooding distortion.” Rachel Aroesti
Joe Lovano: Paramount Quartet
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Lovano and his quartet’s latest album masterfully glows with the saxophone’s pliable eloquence, joined by free-spirited guitar, bass and drums.
What our reviewer said “A late-career triumph from a tireless maestro of the saxophone.” John Fordham
Now touring …
Lily Allen: West End Girl
Tour continues in the UK and Ireland to 8 August
Summed up in a sentence Allen’s one-woman performance of her zeitgeist-dominating album is full of theatrical staging, humour and high camp.
What our reviewer said “It’s certainly an unusual arena show, but as a discourse on power in relationships and perhaps even the emptiness of some celebrity, it’s compelling stuff.” Dave Simpson
Further reading Dead-end boys and West End girls: Lily Allen’s greatest songs – ranked!
