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2 hours ago
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TV
If you only watch one, make it …
Babies
BBC One/iPlayer
Summed up in a sentence Paapa Essiedu and Siobhán Cullen star in Stefan Golaszewski’s exquisite new drama about life after baby loss.
What our reviewer said “With this unsettling, compassionate, funny, moving, wildly unpredictable and beautifully acted series, Golaszewski has given us something very special indeed.” Sarah Dempster
Further reading: Inside Babies, the beautiful drama about the terror and cruelty of miscarriage
Pick of the rest
Dear Killer Nannies
Disney+
Summed up in a sentence Pablo Escobar’s son tells his traumatic coming-of-age story in an unexpectedly moving drama.
What our reviewer said “It’s a surprisingly emotionally-literate story about adultification, loss of innocence, masculinity and trauma … Of course, you can expect the obligatory car crashes and shootouts. But Dear Killer Nannies’ biggest gut-punches are quieter and bloodless.” Micha Frazer-Caroll
Harry Clark Goes to Rome
iPlayer/BBC One
Summed up in a sentence The Traitors winner reconnects with his faith on a moving pilgrimage to the Vatican, but it is his relationship with his mother that really tugs on the heartstrings.
What our reviewer said “If you are a premenstrual, lapsed Catholic woman d’un certain age, do not watch this documentary with anyone in front of whom you do not wish to be seen weeping buckets of inexplicable tears and wailing, “His mother must be so proud!” Lucy Mangan
You may have missed …
A Woman of Substance
Channel 5
Summed up in a sentence Brenda Blethyn dons a fabulous wig in this soapy remake of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s 1979 tale of revenge.
What our reviewer said “A Woman of Substance still works brilliantly as a nostalgia piece – a perfect homage to the age of excess and television that drowned you in plot and let someone else worry about the rest. Think of it as Dallas in Yorkshire. Three-star television but four-star nonsense and delight.” Lucy Mangan
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
The Drama
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Zendaya and Robert Pattinson star in Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli’s controversial wedding film about a woman’s confession on the eve of her nuptials that causes uproar
What our reviewer said “It offers us a provocation, a jeu d’ésprit of outrage, a psychological meltdown that is more astutely articulated than in many another more solemnly intended film. And it gives us what it promises in the title.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Backlash mounts over twist in Robert Pattinson Zendaya romcom The Drama
Pick of the rest
Kim Novak’s Vertigo
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Intensely personal interview of the 92-year-old Hollywood star about her time working for Alfred Hitchcock in the golden age of movies
What our reviewer said “Of course, she has something to say about the most germane issue of all: how Hollywood, and society in general, imposes its male views on how a woman should look and behave, a trope famously embodied by Novak in Vertigo.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘I held on to what’s important’: Kim Novak on Hitchcock, Trump and her Venice lifetime achievement award
D Is for Distance
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Chris Petit and Emma Matthews turned their fight to obtain medical cannabis into a film – it can stop their son Louis’ epileptic seizures but the NHS refuses to supply it.
What our reviewer said “Petit and Matthews try to negotiate a creative way through this agony, relating Louis’ courageous engagement with his incomplete personal history to their own continuing projects, and making Louis’ story part of their own psychogeography.” Peter Bradshaw
Fuze
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Theo James and Aaron Taylor-Johnson face off in London heist centred around a massive, ticking bomb on a building site.
What our reviewer said “It all rattles along watchably enough, taking in more locations than just boring old London, though you’ll find your credulity stretched almost to breaking point.” Peter Bradshaw
Now streaming
Deathstalker
Shudder
Summed up in a sentence Enjoyable revisit of 80s Roger Corman swords-and-sorcery silliness with inventive creature design, goopy practical effects and a metal guitar soundtrack.
What our reviewer said “You’ll know how you’ll feel about this film by your response to words such as “Dreadites” and “Nekromemnon”. For many (like me), there is wondrous pleasure to be found in the ludicrousness of this nomenclature – so perfectly on the nose and so stupidly appealing to one’s inner child.” Catherine Bray
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Transcription by Ben Lerner
Reviewed by Sukhdev Sandhu
Summed up in a sentence An outstanding exploration of technology, memory, modernity and family inheritance.
What our reviewer said “Transcription, for all its riffs on the limits of historiography, its invocation of Kafka, its bracing intelligence, is at its most gripping when it addresses a seemingly simple issue: how to get a teenage girl to eat.”
Pick of the rest
Monsters in the Archives by Caroline Bicks
Reviewed by Kathryn Hughes
Summed up in a sentence Writing secrets from the Stephen King archives.
What our reviewer said This book is Bicks’s account of what happened when King gave her permission to spend a year in his archive, poring over the drafts of five of his most popular novels, including Pet Sematary, The Shining and Carrie.”
Further reading ‘She wrote the best first line – and the most chilling stories’: Stephen King on the dark brilliance of Daphne du Maurier
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley
Reviewed by Clare Clark
Summed up in a sentence A tender portrait of two old friends in London.
What our reviewer said “Riley has a phenomenal ear for dialogue, for the myriad ways in which people unknowingly lay themselves bare, both in what they say and, more agonisingly, in what they don’t – or can’t.”
Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs
Reviewed by Ralf Webb
Summed up in a sentence The relationships that made James Baldwin.
What our reviewer said “Baldwin’s most intimate and lasting relationships were with men, but throughout his life he resisted labels of sexual orientation, arguing that such categories were dehumanising by their nature.”
Lázár by Nelio Biedermann, translated by Jamie Bulloch
Reviewed by Marcel Theroux
Summed up in a sentence A gothic epic of the Hungarian 20th century, from a 22-year-old wunderkind.
What our reviewer said Lázár is captivating and vivid, creating an intriguing atmosphere of secrets, repression and furtive but robust sexuality.”
Further reading ‘It’s another form of imperialism’: how anglophone literature lost its universal appeal
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Sunn O))): Sunn O)))
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The doomy duo strip back their sound to tectonic guitars and feedback, conjuring an immersive, strangely euphoric listening experience.
What our reviewer said “The ambient additions offer a small sonic shift that means the places it takes you feel more welcoming than forbidding, pointing up the music’s oddly euphoric effect”. Alexis Petridis
Further reading ‘The nuns were convinced they were possessed by demons’: goth and metal stars select the scariest music ever made
Pick of the rest
Earl Sweatshirt, Mike and Surf Gang: Pompeii // Utility
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Earl’s post-Odd Future career swerved the mainstream to follow the path laid out by NYC underground rapper Mike, and their first double album lets both shine.
What our reviewer said “True to their respective styles, Mike’s Pompeii is warm and fizzy, songs such as Afro and Tampering countering his deep, laconic voice with bright, spectral beats. Earl’s Utility is darker and more downcast, a necessary yin to Mike’s yang.” Shaad D’Souza
Sanaya Ardeshir: Hand of Thought
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The Indian producer steps away from electronics into intricate, slow-building compositions that favour texture and restraint.
What our reviewer said “Ardeshir’s exploration is quietly compelling, showcasing her capacity as an instrumentalist and producer to create soundworlds of unexpected depth.” Ammar Kalia
Now showing …
The Turn of the Screw
At Linbury theatre, London, to 6 April
Summed up in a sentence Natalie Abrahami and Michael Levine’s imaginative production of the Britten opera is brilliantly creepy and insightful.
What our reviewer said “Royal Opera’s new production happens in absolute blackout. All the better to focus our attention on the words, you might think – but then, slowly, you realise that the singer is moving around in the darkness, impossible to pin down.” Erica Jeal
