“I have to betray them to save them.” Those words, spoken by Christine Marie, sit at the heart of this compelling and deeply upsetting four-part Netflix documentary series about the continued abuse within Utah’s Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints community. Christine and her husband, Tolga Katas, move slowly and carefully into the heart of the…
What would you do if your fiancée revealed, in front of your friends during wedding preparations, the worst thing they had ever done? In The Drama, this shocking confession becomes the catalyst for the film’s central conflict, as Emma admits that, at 15, she once planned a school shooting but ultimately did not go through with…
I haven’t seen many Michael Jackson documentaries before, and when he died I was too young to really understand everything surrounding him. I still liked his music, though, so watching this felt like filling in gaps I never properly explored. The title of this three-part BBC documentary raises a bigger question: whose story is it really telling? Is it…
When you watch a theatre show and you are completely absorbed in the production, thinking of nothing else, it becomes something special. This is one of those shows that I will think about for a long time. Watching Romeo and Juliet at the Harold Pinter Theatre felt like that kind of experience. For me, William Shakespeare is a hit and miss…
First things first. The Harry Potter film franchise was an integral part of my childhood, and this HBO-produced, mega-budget TV series feels too soon and too familiar to justify its own existence. The trailer landed yesterday and, while it doesn’t look bad on a technical level, the ghosts of its predecessors haunt every frame. It…
From 2013 to 2022, Peaky Blinders, created by Steven Knight, dominated TV’s crime drama landscape with its distinctive style and unforgettable characters. At the heart of it all was Birmingham’s Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), a war-scarred anti-hero who rose from the trauma of the First World War trenches to lead his family’s Romani-traveller crime empire. Despite his…
After watching the BAFTAs, it’s hard to ignore how nuanced and complicated this situation really is. There was a strong and justified condemnation of the slur itself but when Alan Cumming read a quickly prepared statement it all felt a bit rushed and thoughtless. He said at the end, “we apologised if you were offended,” it…
Most people tend to write off Mary Bennet from Pride and Prejudice as the awkward, slightly irritating sister, but The Other Bennet Sister offers something far more thoughtful. Here, Mary is given real depth, and much of that comes down to Ella Bruccoleri’s performance. She plays her with quiet intelligence and curiosity, and there’s a subtle wit to her…
I normally love a Louis Theroux documentary. His interview style is usually brilliant: he asks a quiet question, gives someone just enough rope, and then waits while they slowly tie themselves in knots on camera. It’s awkward, patient, and oddly polite and more often than not it works. Part of the frustration with Louis Theroux: Inside…
Gary Hilborn appears in five episodes of the new season of The Night Agent as Trent Patterson, the Head of the Secret Service at the White House. A seasoned actor with deep roots in theatre and a growing slate of screen and writing projects, Hilborn brings authority, warmth, and lived-in authenticity to every role he takes on….
