The Week’s best film, TV, book and live show on this weekend, with excerpts from the top reviews.
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“The beauty of this show is the way their chuntering evolves into profundity and then back again, without changing tone. Paul is in dad mode, telling off Bob, who plays the recalcitrant child… ‘Paul, please don’t strike me,’ Bob says, later, when they pore over childhood photographs, ‘but your right foot would appear to be...a trotter? Or a hoof?’ At the end Paul says he has brought his father’s ashes and wants to scatter them in the stream. ‘Oh that’s nice,’ Bob says, lightly, and leaves him to it.”
On Friday 23 August 2019 at 8pm on BBC2
MOVIE: Hail Satan?
Ben Travis in Empire
“Documentarian Penny Lane presents a hilarious, timely and thought-provoking look at an underground, self-constructed religion that aims to stir controversy while offering sanctity to those who fall outside the worldview of typical all-American Christian values. Satan, the Temple argues, has always been portrayed as ‘evil’ by those who believe that the God of institutional Christianity is inherently good. But if the Devil is merely a dissenting voice against authority who feels that humanity deserves to have freewill, is he really that bad?”
Released Friday 23 August
BOOK: This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto by Suketu Mehta
Bilal Qureshi in The Washington Post
“From its opening anecdotes, Mehta makes clear that the book was born in ‘sorrow and rage’ after the election of Donald Trump. He argues that immigration needs to be reframed as a matter of global justice. Immigrants from poorer countries are creditors, here to rightfully collect the debts owed to them by the richer nations of the West that have shattered their political and economic futures. It is a provocative and seductive polemic by design, buttressed by statistics, reporting and a powerful personal narrative. For this immigrant reader, the results are variable.”
Released Thursday 22 August
SHOW: Fleabag
Sanya Burgess for Sky News
“The eponymous tragicomedy centres around a wickedly funny, desperately sad, sexually unapologetic millennial woman living in London. Despite cracking laughs all the way, it becomes clear she is riddled with a malignant guilt and her sexual liberalism has grown into a deeply unhealthy replacement for kind human interaction… Waller-Bridge was able to amplify her knowing looks to reach the back rows of a West End Theatre without appearing to break sweat.”
20 August to 14 September at Wyndham’s Theatre, London
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Friendship: 'bromance' comedy starring Paul Rudd and Tim RobinsonThe Week Recommends 'Lampooning and embracing' middle-aged male loneliness, this film is 'enjoyable and funny'
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The Count of Monte Cristo review: 'indecently spectacular' adaptationThe Week Recommends Dumas's classic 19th-century novel is once again given new life in this 'fast-moving' film
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Death of England: Closing Time review – 'bold, brash reflection on racism'The Week Recommends The final part of this trilogy deftly explores rising political tensions across the country
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Sing Sing review: prison drama bursts with 'charm, energy and optimism'The Week Recommends Colman Domingo plays a real-life prisoner in a performance likely to be an Oscars shoo-in
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Kaos review: comic retelling of Greek mythology starring Jeff GoldblumThe Week Recommends The new series captures audiences as it 'never takes itself too seriously'
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Blink Twice review: a 'stylish and savage' black comedy thrillerThe Week Recommends Channing Tatum and Naomi Ackie stun in this film on the hedonistic rich directed by Zoë Kravitz
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Shifters review: 'beautiful' new romantic comedy offers 'bittersweet tenderness'The Week Recommends The 'inventive, emotionally astute writing' leaves audiences gripped throughout
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How to do F1: British Grand Prix 2025The Week Recommends One of the biggest events of the motorsports calendar is back and better than ever
