The Week’s best film, TV, book and live show on this weekend, with excerpts from the top reviews.
TELEVISION: Temple
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“Filmed earlier this year, Temple is set ‘deep below the streets of London, descending past Temple tube in the beating heart of the city’ where there ‘lies a dark secret. An illegal clinic has been set up in an abandoned subterranean network of tunnels.’ Spooky. Temple is based on the Norwegian drama Valkyrien, and has been adapted by Boy A writer Mark O'Rowe. Expect to see this twisting, dark morality thriller.”
First episode 13 September on Sky One
MOVIE: Downton Abbey
Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian
“There are some films that you really have to see on the big screen. Not this one, though. To get the full, authentic experience, you’ll need to see it on the small screen, on 27 December, with quart of eggnog inside you and enough Quality Street to trigger a diabetic coma. It is at all times ridiculous – but, I have to admit, quite enjoyable… Is the franchise just beginning? You’ve heard of Fast and Furious. We could be in for The Languid and Lugubrious: Downton 2.”
Released 13 September
BOOK: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in The Times
“In her long-awaited sequel Atwood confronts this phenomenon head on. ‘Dear Readers,’ she wrote last year, ‘Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book... The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.’ True to her word, the world of The Testaments is familiar and strange. Gilead’s state machinery remains intact, including the elite male Commanders, all-spying Eyes, and brown-clad Aunts, who organise women’s lives through piety and fear.”
Released 10 September
SHOW: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Theo Bosanquet for The Stage
“Mardi Gras has come to Shakespeare’s Globe. New associate director Sean Holmes’ inventive and colourful production is a heady summer treat… The lovers are among the most charming you’ll see, with Ekow Quartey’s soul-singing Lysander a particular standout. There are comic set pieces aplenty, from frolics on a blow-up mattress to the entrance of Titania (Victoria Elliott) on a psychedelic golf cart.”
11 September - 13 October at The Globe