From Celebrity Traitors to Extra Geography: the week in rave reviews
Summed up in a sentence The most hotly anticipated TV show of 2026 makes its debut – with a brilliant cast of stars.
What our reviewer said “The cast feels slightly more muted – the energy is not quite there yet. But Claudia and her clothes and attitude are, and the opening episode of any Traitors outing is always the weakest.” Lucy Mangan
Further reading From shocking cruelty to the reason Claudia hid in a bush: 10 things you need to know about The Celebrity Traitors
Pick of the rest
War
NOW & Sky Atlantic; available now
Summed up in a sentence Sienna Miller and Dominic West go head to head as two celebs having a high-profile divorce.
What our reviewer said “Soap opera with money, talent and plot to burn. What more could you ask at the end of a long, long day?” Lucy Mangan
Further reading ‘I’d strip for £100!’ Dominic West and Sienna Miller on nudity, narcissism and their juicy new show War
Blue Lights
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence One of TV’s best cop dramas returns with a renewed focus on tackling the injustices hitting the headlines.
What our reviewer said “Blue Lights has always been a very modern cop drama. But it’s never been explicitly topical; it’s never felt as if it is reading today’s national news headlines with the same appalled gaze as the rest of us. Until now.” Jack Seale
East of Eden
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence Florence Pugh stars in an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel that leans into the soapy, family drama aspect of the story.
What our reviewer said “As a high-quality family saga, it’s brilliant, compelling entertainment.” Lucy Mangan
You may have missed …
The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door
Sky Documentaries & Now TV; available now
Summed up in a sentence A gripping look at the poisonings of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, featuring interviews with Theresa May and Amber Rudd.
What our reviewer said “A not quite comprehensive but still nicely busy feature-length documentary that offers a compendium of ways in which the Salisbury attack was fascinating and deeply strange.” Jack Seale
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Alex Gibney documentary based on Rushdie’s memoir, telling the story of the attempt to assassinate him in 2022 and his subsequent recovery.
What our reviewer said “What emerges is Rushdie’s courage and his remarkably level-headed, calm and unafraid writerly voice insisting on the primacy of literature, freedom of expression and the life of the imagination.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘The damage was much worse than I had imagined’: the shocking inside story of Salman Rushdie’s survival
Pick of the rest
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Extremely funny boarding school comedy adapted from a story by Rose Tremain, in which two BFFs audition for the school play.
What our reviewer said “It is all about sex, class, friendship and the awful encroachment of adulthood. As well as everything else, it refuses the glib happy ending of the traditional coming-of-age movie.” Peter Bradshaw
Derek vs Derek
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Engaging documentary about two Devon farmers on adjoining plots of land, but with very different ideas about how to farm and manage it.
What our reviewer said “There’s just the right amount of common touch to the way director James Dawson sets up the antagonism between these two men – only to see it evolve into a more agreeable coexistence, perhaps even symbiosis by the last act.” Leslie Felperin
Further reading ‘The man’s a psychopath when it comes to hedgerows’: Derek vs Derek, the unexpectedly heartwarming doc about farmers at war
Take It or Leave It
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Docufictional comedy from 1981 about the rise of the baggy-trousered ska-pop national treasures Madness, taking us from their beginnings in 1976 to their chart breakthrough.
What our reviewer said “This really does give you an idea of what it was like, minute by minute, to be in pre-fame Madness. … insouciant and unassuming, and amazingly innocent.” Peter Bradshaw
Now streaming
Idiots
Apple TV+; available now
Summed up in a sentence Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr lead a goofy road trip that is a throwback bro comedy and an entertaining summer seat-filler.
What our reviewer said “Macon’s film gets away with some winning stupidity, such as when Davis is reprimanded by his pastor, played by Killer Mike, for taking a church group of kids to see a movie with full frontal shots of “dongs”. (The film turns out to be Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist.) Owen Myers
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Deep into the Sixties: Britain 1965-66 by David Kynaston
Reviewed by Blake Morrison
Summed up in a sentence A vivid social history from the era of the Beatles and the World Cup.
What our reviewer said “Younger audiences may be struck by the parallels between then and now: a Labour prime minister from the north, economic strife, the US in a pointless war, hostility to immigrants.”
Pick of the rest
On the Equality of All Things by Carlo Rovelli
Reviewed by Farrah Jarral
Summed up in a sentence A physicist’s philosophical musings on how everything is relative.
What our reviewer said “In contrast to the bleakness that can shroud such unflinching scientific accounts of the universe, Rovelli’s telling validates our messy, subjective human experiences.”
Stations by Louise Kennedy
Reviewed by Clare Clark
Summed up in a sentence The follow-up to Trespasses is a story about Irish emigrants in 1980s London.
What our reviewer said “Her characters are messy, flawed, often shatteringly self-destructive but, mapped with her fierce compassion, they march straight off the page.”
Dodge City by Patrick deWitt
Reviewed by Keshava Guha
Summed up in a sentence A quirky 1960s draft dodging road trip across the US.
What our reviewer said “DeWitt is a throwback because he writes what is unquestionably ‘literary fiction’ for a large audience, and makes a living from doing so: he has a simultaneous commitment to readerly pleasure and literary artifice.”
The Fall of the West by Owen Jones
Reviewed by Houman Barekat
Summed up in a sentence The Guardian columnist charts a quarter century of geopolitical blunders.
What our reviewer said “It is bracing to see what was once the news cycle take its place in the sweep of history, and Jones’s focus on free-market fundamentalism provides a compelling through-line.”
You may have missed …
The Traveller by Andrea Wulf
Reviewed by Nick Bartlett
Summed up in a sentence This revelatory account of the life of George Forster, who travelled the world as an assistant naturalist on board Captain James Cook’s HMS Resolution, is shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford prize.
What our reviewer said “The richness of Wulf’s research – drawn from Forster’s personal correspondence, diaries and essays, as well as those of his contemporaries – injects a novelistic specificity into the scenes she reconstructs.”
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Meshell Ndegeocello: Synonym
Blue Note; out now
Summed up in a sentence In the jazz-soul singer’s “expression of queer liberation”, stars from Chaka Khan to Bill Callahan to Cynthia Erivo duet on equally varied songs from Cher to the Human League and beyond.
What our reviewer said “Equally, the odd experiment not entirely coming off feels a very small price to pay for an album as fascinating as this: proof both of Ndegeocello’s unique, personal approach to what she does, and of pop’s infinite malleability in the right hands. It might celebrate collaboration, but Synonym feels like an entirely singular achievement.” Alexis Petridis
Pick of the rest
Trá Pháidín: Cloch’s Claí
World of Echo; out now
Summed up in a sentence With musical ideas spanning mariachi and motorik beats, and lyrics with Kneecap-grade rage, this brilliant collective evolve tradition with stinging, joyful songs.
What our reviewer said “Stinging, musically all-enveloping and often unexpectedly joyful, Cloch’s Claí suggests new foundations for folk with every listen.” Jude Rogers
Greg Freeman: All Set the Bone
Transgressive; out now
Summed up in a sentence The Maryland singer-songwriter’s third album has an impressive sense of scale compared to last year’s breakout Burnover, but is less immediately appealing.
What our reviewer said “All Set the Bone is several orders more ambitious in its scale, and its songwriting, which is more imagistic and diffuse. The result is an impressive record but one that’s less immediately appealing … All Set the Bone contains fewer fireworks than Burnover, but Freeman still has plenty of spark.” Shaad D’Souza
On tour …
Paraorchestra; Sinfonietta/Jonny Greenwood
Southbank Centre, London; touring now
Summed up in a sentence Paraorchestra’s immersive performance of Music for 18 Musicians was immaculate and exhilarating; London Sinfonietta and the Radiohead guitarist’s vibrant tribute to the almost 90-year-old composer followed.
What our reviewer said “Doing the honours was Paraorchestra, Charles Hazlewood’s enterprising collective of disabled and non-disabled musicians, who brought Reich’s kaleidoscopic music to life with ironclad discipline … Line dancing, disco lights – this exhilarating performance had it all.” Clive Paget
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