Film, TV & Book Reviews

Sometimes films will go to unnecessary lengths to ensure realism and elicit actual emotions from audiences, even when it comes down to the most minute details. Most of the time ...

Starring Gary Oldman with his toes poking through holes in his socks, I needed no more persuading to watch this brilliant series, which starts off with him startling himself awake ...

By Simon Demetriou I’m pretty sure I’ve never described a book as rollicking before. Rollicking isn’t typically one of my words. But Go Gentle is rollicking. And ...

Fighting games are once more taking a crack at the big screen this season. Mortal Kombat II, starring Keith Urban, hits the box office first, followed by Street Fighter, releasing ...

One word that comes to mind when I think of Love Rat is magnificent. This drama blends romance with deception, pulling you into a story that feels light at first, ...

By Philippa Tracy Reading this book took me back to the start of the Covid pandemic and the time just before lockdowns when the world became, as the writer says, “...

Ever been so sure about something that even when you are proven wrong, you still can’t believe it? Not because of fanaticism, just because you were so, SO sure ...

I admit, I didn’t love it at first. Sara Bareilles drew me in. You know the one, she is the singer who wrote the hit Love Song in 2007, stars ...

In Transcription, Ben Lerner’s narrator refers early on to a seminal moment in his life when he was taken to see Harvard’s glass flowers and began to develop ...

Remarkably Bright Creatures Sometimes, the only thing you need to say to convince me to watch a show is just a few words. Especially if those words are: “wise, gentle ...

One word that comes to mind when I think of Untamed is twisted. This psychological thriller bridges two worlds: the external suspense of a thriller and an internal complex of ...

By Philippa Tracy I didn’t really know that Western noir was a genre until I got tipped off about C William Langsfeld’s debut novel. Now, I feel foolish ...

By Constantinos Psillides There was a time when San Diego ComicCon was the undisputed arena for studios to flex their upcoming slates. Fans, cosplay, surprise appearances, Hall H hysteria, the ...

Protocol 1: The mission comes first. But does it? This is not your run-of-the-mill story about time travel. Instead of the whole person arriving in the 21st century to change things ...

By Philippa Tracy In an extended read of nearly 700 pages, the two eponymous protagonists, Sonia Shah and Sunny Bhatia, navigate a complex journey across two continents during which a failed ...

If you grew up in Cyprus, there is a very good chance that Jesus of Nazareth was not just a TV series to you. It was an annual event. A ...

Your Friends and Neighbours Season 2 (April 3, Apple TV+) Jon Hamm returns as Coop, the wealthy financier who lives in an upscale neighbourhood in New York and sees his whole world ...

Whereas its spiritual predecessor Yes, Minister offered a world of polished deceit and gentlemanly obstruction, The Thick of It proves rather more profane in its satire. Here, ministers are compromised, ...

Emily Nemens’ sophomore novel about millennial female friendship has garnered the sort of positive press that might be expected when the former editor of The Paris Review follows up her ...

There are a couple of series I have on rotation for casual viewing – you know, the kind you have already seen, so it feels familiar to return to. Apart from ...

I spent much of the end of 2025 and start of 2026 moaning about people who ought to know about funny books claiming that unfunny books were actually funny. Evidently, this means ...

Netflix’s live adaptation of the global manga phenomenon One Piece is, somehow, still winning. In its first season, it pulled in around 19 million viewers and managed the impossible: pleasing ...

Gilbert is not welcome in Bodkin, Ireland. Especially as an American podcaster poking his nose into affairs the locals have for years swept under the carpet. Flanked by English researcher ...

By Philippa Tracy Dominic Salt is struggling to deal with the death of his wife, Claire, nine years earlier. She died when her youngest child, Orly, was born. Since then, ...