What’s The Matter With Tony Slattery? Thursday, BBC2 Rating: The Big Flower Fight Netflix Rating: This week a new Netflix show that mercilessly plunders the Bake Off/Sewing Bee format, and a documentary on the comedian Tony Slattery, who was ubiquitous in the late 1980s and early 1990s before suddenly disappearing from view. And while I’m … Read more
The Assistant (various streaming platforms, including Curzon Home Cinema, 15) Verdict: Subtle but powerful Rating: The Assistant is not the first film to broach the subject of sexual harassment by powerful men in the entertainment industry, which spawned the #MeToo movement, and it certainly won’t be the last. But it will always be one of the … Read more
It was late at night when we stopped at a platform with a big sign that read ‘Auschwitz’. The name meant nothing to me. Even before the train doors opened, I heard bellowing and cursing in German and Polish. Outside, I could see, among the SS guards, a large number of strange creatures with shaved … Read more
There was no point in pretending that he had the slightest chance of winning the pool now – not unless the goddam ship started to go backwards. They’d have to put her in reverse and go full speed astern and keep right on going if he was to have any chance of winning it now. … Read more
Hulu announced that The Handmaid’s Tale, currently filming its fourth season, will halt production as a result of the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday. The series joins a long list of productions that have opted to hit pause this week after president Donald Trump declared the virus a ‘national emergency’ on Friday. Season four of the acclaimed … Read more
Here We Are Graham Swift Scribner £14.99 Rating: Way back in 1983, Graham Swift wrote the novel – Waterland – that made him famous, or at least almost famous, as he is the Invisible Man of English Letters, rarely signing books at literary festivals or holding forth on Newsnight. Waterland was about the way human … Read more
It’s the ultimate home luxury: your very own dressing room. We asked interior designer Kelly Hoppen and gallerist India Rose James for a peek inside their dreamy dressing spaces
MEMOIR Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent (One £12.99, 240pp) You’ll be familiar with the magic of the ageless friendship if you’ve ever treasured a close attachment to someone 30 or 40 years older or younger. It’s a magic tinged with poignancy, because you both know that the older one will probably die first, leaving … Read more
Greed Cert: 15, 1hr 44mins Rating: By and … Read more
MEMOIR MY PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY by Zeba Talkhani (Sceptre £9.99, 200pp) Zeba Talkhani’s mother was preparing for one of her many extravagant dinner parties when her daughter heard a scream. ‘Mama’ had caught her hand in the blender. Blood spattered everywhere. She was taken to bed, where her body began to convulse. Zeba … Read more