What’s on this weekend? From Honey Boy to Amélie

(Image credit: Honey Boy)

By The Week Staff

last updated 6 December 2019

The Week’s best film, TV, book and live show on this weekend, with excerpts from the top reviews.

TELEVISION: The BBC Prime Ministerial Debate

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“I am not short of advice. In fact, it is coming in thick and fast. ‘Ask Boris Johnson why he’s such a liar,’ says one friend. ‘Ask Jeremy Corbyn why he loves our enemies and hates our friends,’ says another. They may be disappointed by what I’m planning for The BBC Prime Ministerial Debate on 6 December. I don’t see my job as giving the man who’s currently got the job, or the man who wants it, a ‘grilling’. My aim is to make sure they address the questions posed by members of the audience. I want to limit the time they spend delivering ‘oven ready’ soundbites drafted and redrafted by their spin doctors.”

“Shia LaBeouf has always seemed tinged by mania, on and off the screen…It’s hard to recall any other film that does what this does, an actor laying himself bare like this, in terms of both the script and his own performance as his father — there are levels and levels and levels. With almost every role of his career, LaBeouf has seemed like he’s on fire. To some degree, this fascinating piece of work explains why.”

“Melania Trump is an enigma, but a new book by Kate Bennett, a CNN reporter who spent years following the first lady, promises to give the unofficial, unauthorised account of who she really is. Is she really Donald Trump’s prisoner? Or is she, as the book asks, ‘a woman who spent her childhood and formative years in a poor communist country, who speaks five languages, who privately spends her time visiting sick children … a fierce protector of her child?’”

“There’s a wonderfully wistful sense to Michael Fentiman’s quietly confident production; it takes gumption for a musical to be this dialled-down. It’s a strategy that is amply rewarded by a satisfying depth and texture and all-round rapt holding of audience breath when Amélie and Nino finally get the chance to sing at each other. Madeleine Girling’s playful design evokes a classic French bistro as well as a big station and the two onstage pianos ingeniously open up to become, in turn, a tobacconist’s counter, a grocer’s stall and a display case in the sex shop where Nino works. Yes, sex shop, as even charming whimsy requires the occasional dose of grit.”

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