Film, TV & Book Reviews

There’s a brilliant moment in the BBC comedy Upstart Crow when Shakespeare – played by David Mitchell – defends his work as a comic writer by saying, ‘If you do your ...

’Tis the season to be binging tra la la la! If there is one time when it is socially acceptable to stay home and watch TV all day long, that’...

The House Beside the River (To Spiti Dipla sto Potami) is a TV adaptation of Lena Manda’s best-selling novel of the same name. The series traces the lives of ...

Claire-Louise Bennett’s last novel, Checkout 19, was one of the best things I read in 2022. In 2025, Bennett is back with another novel that plays with the slipperiness, vitality and insufficiency ...

A decade ago, when Netflix decided to take a risk with Stranger Things, not even the most optimistic executive could have guessed how enormously successful it was going to be. ...

I could bet that whatever’s been stressing you out lately is not a sassy interdimensional triangle. But maybe it should be, just for a little while. Allow me to ...

By Philippa Tracy At the centre of the tragicomic debut novel At the Table is the Maguire family, Linda and Gerry, and their two 30-something children, Nicole and Jamie. Over ...

When all major players on a set carry around their massive egos, it is only a matter of time before they clash, usually with disastrous consequences. We all have colleagues ...

Not strictly a TV show but if you’re into the weird and wacky, the Why Files? YouTube channel is highly engaging which can’t be said for most of ...

In yet another mark of my lack of sophistication, I have to confess to only ever having read two Pynchon novels. And what’s worse, they’re his two shortest. ...

One of the harshest things a TV show can do is end a season on a cliffhanger. Manipulate your emotions, lead you to the pivotal moment the whole season has ...

Cameron Cope, a closeted gay American teenager with zero sexual experience, dons military boots after impulsively joining the marines with his best friend in a desperate attempt to give meaning ...

When I found Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut, My Sister, The Serial Killer, on my father-in-law’s shelf, I knew a couple of pages in that I was reading something special, ...

The Witcher season 4 premiered this week, and the crowd went… meh. The reviews were abysmal, the viewership collapsed, and what was once Netflix’s shining fantasy jewel is now limping ...

Single’s Inferno perfectly blends the two different worlds of questionable-but-entertaining Western find-love reality TV with the charming cheesiness of K-Dramas. First aired in 2021, this South Korean reality show returns ...

By Philippa Tracy Isabel was 11 when she moved into the house outside of the Hague during the second world war. Her mother died there ten years later. Isabel is still ...

Teen runaways, cryptic reformation schools hidden behind tall pine trees and a close-knit community that seems a little too perfect. It all makes a great foundation for an eerie psychological ...

People don’t read Charles Lamb enough anymore, which is a terrible shame because he is utterly brilliant in so many ways. Perhaps above all, though, we should read him ...

Rebooting a beloved series is always a risky endeavour. On one hand, studios see an opportunity to revive a recognisable property and spark a new wave of nostalgia-driven success. On ...

Take an immature, lazy and irresponsible narcissist and give him superpowers. Instead of getting himself to his job on time – or at all for that matter – Javier is looking to ...

Leave it to me to encounter a writer that virtually every child and the majority of parents and teachers have already been reading for decades when he decides to publish ...

For anybody who enjoys watching eccentric personalities in action in a show filled with morally grey characters House, M.D. is for you. First released over 20 years ago, in November 2004, ...

By Philippa Tracy Australian writer Richard Flanagan’s book won the Booker Prize in 2014 and was this summer screened as five-part series on the BBC. The title refers to a ...

Years ago, when deciding on a macroeconomic growth strategy, Netflix execs took a bold step: instead of forcing US made content on the rest of the world, they chose to ...