What’s on this weekend? From Our House is on Fire to Race Against the World

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

TELEVISION: Race Against the World

Grace Henry in the Radio Times

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“The travelling show – which saw a number of travellers compete to reach Singapore from London with a set amount of money and a no-flying rule – became BBC Two’s highest-performing first-series factual entertainment episode in more than three years, and one of the channel’s top 10 most-watched shows of the year... Like last year, contestants will be pushed to their limits as they race from one place to another thousands of miles away without taking a single flight or using their smartphone. This time they’ll be setting off from Mexico City in a race to reach the most southerly city in the world, Ushuaia in Argentina.”

Episode one airs 8pm Sunday 8 March on BBC Two

MOVIE: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

Nikki Baughan in Empire

“The true highlight of the film is, of course, the extended interview with the 88-year-old Morrison, which proves the narrative backbone of the film. Staring down the barrel of the camera, she recounts the experiences that have shaped her. Many anecdotes — such as the time she was a college student stealing the ‘ridiculous’ segregation signs of ‘white’ and ‘colored’ and sending them home to her mother — are punctuated with a hearty chuckle. Warm, humble and utterly compelling, Morrison was as profound a storyteller in person as she is on the page.”

Released 6 March

BOOK: Our House is on Fire by Malena and Beata Ernman, Svante and Greta Thunberg​

David Mitchell in The Guardian

“Autistic people, as Greta noted in her 2018 Ted Talk, tend not to be good liars, either to others or to themselves. Greta’s initial depression was triggered by her lack of the neurotypical talent to compartmentalise fact A ‘We know we are destroying our planet with orgiastic overconsumption’ (my words) safely away from fact B ‘We carry on regardless.’ This talent lets us neurotypicals function as inconvenient truths pile up but it also prevents us from making the systemic changes needed to avert ecological collapse.”

Published 5 March

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STAGE: The Death of England

Nick Curtis in The London Evening Standard

“Rafe Spall gives an electrifying, ­turbo-charged, powerhouse performance in this one-man show probing toxic masculinity and the little Englander mentality. Rampaging around a stage shaped like a St George’s Cross, Spall pinwheels through grief, confusion, fury and self-pity. Physically and vocally, it is one of the most ferociously demanding performances I’ve ever seen…[director] Clint Dyer’s production pulses with dynamism, helped by stark lighting changes and blasts of Nineties trip-hop. It was clearly created for Spall and he is the engine that drives it, recklessly and fast. I sincerely hope he gets to have a lie-down and a gargle afterwards.”

At National Theatre’s Dorfman stage, London playing until 7 March