4 hours ago
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TV
If you only watch one, make it …
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 – and who embodies the joie de vivre upon which so much of the plot, as everyone she meets becomes part of her orbit, depends.” Lucy Mangan
Pick of the rest
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 died by suicide 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
You may have missed …
Possession
Sky Atlantic/Now TV; available now
Summed up in a sentence Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a lawyer who has a nightmarish experience when she is sent to a Jamaican plantation to get to the bottom of a mystery about an inheritance.
What our reviewer said “Possession is a well-textured, evocative tale touching on many important questions, if never quite digging down far enough into any of them to be truly satisfying.’” Lucy Mangan
Further reading ‘You can’t paper over the cracks of history. It will haunt you’: Gugu Mbatha-Raw on her race-horror thriller
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Lady
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Fleabag’s Sian Clifford plays delusional Lady Isabella Ravenhyde, who fancies herself “the aristocracy’s answer to the Kardashians” and invites a documentary-maker into her stately pile with comically calamitous results.
What our reviewer said “A scuzzier, shroomier B-side to Saltburn. An outrageous barnstormer. But there are laughs and unexpected tenderness in this very peculiar sentimental education.” Peter Bradshaw
Pick of the rest
Steal this Story, Please!
Out now
Summed up in a sentence A documentary about the life and times of campaigning US political journalist and talk radio host Amy Goodman, whose scoops range from oil giants and Bill Clinton to East Timor.
What our reviewer said “On the air since 1996, Goodman is flying the flag for journalism of the unfashionably homespun progressive left, while America’s corporate news media are sheepishly capitulating to their tech oligarch owners.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘They slammed their M16s against his skull’: inside the film about Amy Goodman’s fearless reporting
Tony
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Dominic Sessa puts on the chefs whites in this 70s-set origin story of TV star Anthony Bourdain, adapted from his bestselling memoir Kitchen Confidential.
What our reviewer said “For all the drugs and punch-ups, this is an unexpectedly sentimental coming-of-age story. And it is entertaining but its feelgood trajectory is compromised by what we know of the author.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘These cooks ripped each other apart’: Dominic Sessa on playing Anthony Bourdain, kitchen bullies and the joys of being a 70s barfly
James: Getting Away With It
Out now
Summed up in a sentence A charming and funny documentary about the Manchester indie music stalwarts.
What our reviewer said “The interpersonal dynamics of this band are fascinating. They’re a mixture of hippies and hardnuts, dreamers and pragmatists, united by music. And quite deliberately, it seems, they have maintained a position on the brink of implosion, always dancing on the edge of chaos.” Laurence Phelan
Now streaming
Miss You, Love You
HBO
Summed up in a sentence Oscar winner Alison Janney and Andrew Rannells (Elijah from TV’s Girls) star in this grownup drama about a woman grieving the death of her husband with the help of her son’s personal assistant.
What our reviewer said “The script allows for more depth and darkness than we often get to see from Janney, leading to one of her finest turns to date. I admired its willingness to allow characters to be selfish or exhausting or hypocritical even until the very end.” Benjamin Lee
Further reading ‘It was fun to get pushed around’: Andrew Rannells on ‘razzle dazzle’, kissing co-stars and being a better friend to Lena Dunham
Books
If you only read one, make it …
A History of the Novel in Britain by Philip Hensher
Reviewed by Kathryn Hughes
Summed up in a sentence A rollicking literary adventure across 300 years.
What our reviewer said “There is nothing dreary here; no sense of being back in the seminar room taking notes. Instead it is an excuse to revisit old literary loves and be reminded of ones that have slipped from view.”
Pick of the rest
I Give You My Silence by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Adrian Nathan West
Reviewed by Marcel Theroux
Summed up in a sentence The late Nobel laureate’s final novel is an eccentric love letter to the music of Peru.
What our reviewer said “By the novel’s end, I had followed Toño up the Pacific coast of Peru on Google Maps, made a vals playlist on Spotify and searched the prices of return flights to Lima.”
Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh
Reviewed by Jake Arnott
Summed up in a sentence Gun culture and generational conflict in an explosive American family saga.
What our reviewer said “This late-career tour-de-force explores a collective emotional malaise at the heart of a great power in decline.”
The Beverly Hills Housewife by James Cahill
Reviewed by Ben Estham
Summed up in a sentence An exploration of David Hockney’s milieu via a painting of his muse, Betty Freeman.
What our reviewer said “Rather than digging up the painting’s glossy surface, he glances off it into anecdotal histories of vanguard American music, the mythologised Los Angeles art scene, and much else besides.”
John Berger: From Life by Tom Overton
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Summed up in a sentence A multi-faceted biography of the pioneering critic.
What our reviewer said “His exuberant biography is thick with detail and lit by wonder. It strains to paint the whole canvas and give us the man in full, warts and all.”
You may have missed …
All Them Dogs by Djamel White review
Reviewed by Jack Arnott
Summed up in a sentence A homoerotic dance of desire and betrayal, longlisted for the Booker prize.
What our reviewer said “White’s ability to conjure a downbeat world of rundown estates, boxing gyms and tattoo parlours is truly compelling, and there’s a real dynamism to his prose that combines street slang with poetic simile.”
Further reading This Booker longlist may have two previous winners, but it’s keen to experiment
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Chelsea Wolfe: The Dark
Out 21 August
Summed up in a sentence The Californian sonic experimentalist dabbles in various genres, from folk to windswept goth-rock a la Evanescence, on this expansive ninth album.
What our reviewer said “Drone and doom metal has almost entirely made way for brooding bass lines, wailing guitars, dramatic dynamic shifts and subtle orchestrations.” Dave Simpson
Pick of the rest
Henry Threadgill, Vijay Iyer, Dafnis Prieto: Fifteen
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Pianist/composer Vijay Iyer and Cuban percussionist Dafnis Prieto join forces with 82-year-old Pulitzer prize-winning flautist on this dizzying, improv-heavy opus.
What our reviewer said “Hearteningly delightful contemporary music-making.” John Fordham
Open Mike Eagle and Kenny Segal: Doomed!
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Adding to the canon of breakup albums, Doomed! picks over the bones of US rapper Open Mike Eagle’s five-year relationship, aided by producer Segal’s glistening beats.
What our reviewer said ‘“It’s the sound of Open Mike Eagle replaying every row and coming up with the ideal comeback just a few months too late.” Will Pritchard
