Stephanie O’Brien

I saw the Cure perform several of these songs live in 2022: They are extraordinary. The album is so beautiful, but despite my familiarity with much of it, I found it very hard to listen to all through as the desolation over the inevitability of loss and mortality is tangible, and resonates almost too much with thus of us who, like Smith, are getting on in tears. Smith’s voice hasn’t changed over the decades, still that heart rending plaintive quality. The band as always just so tight. It really is wonderful.

Clunky, plodding and daft. The frequency with which I had to suspend my belief became tiresome. While purporting to examine issues of sexual exploitation of young women and girls the camera lingered a bit too long and salaciously on some rather questionable scenes involving teenage girls to be comfortable. The scene with the horse was pretty bad and unnecessary too. Jenna Coleman is a great actor - what is she doing in this tripe?

As others have said this would be a just about ok cop drama if it wasn’t a Rebus. Rankin is woefully miscast - way too fresh faced and chubby-cheeked , and where’s the rumpled, stained suit? Rebus seems too to be a side character with the plot so far focusing more on his brother who barely features in the books. As for Siobhan Clarke - this glamorous, gorgeous, lip-enhanced young woman is good in her own right, but doesn’t fit with Siobhan as she is written in the books. Will watch it, but it isn’t a true Rebus.

The best film I’ve seen in years. Tender and utterly heartbreaking, it is acted and directed flawlessly. Why Andrew Scott hasn’t been Oscar nominated for his performance (in fact…the film quite bizarrely has not been nominated in any category) I just don’t understand. Though desperately sad, I didn’t find it depressing. Without being at all mawkish or sentimental, it is in the end a film about love.

Beyond dreadful. Ridiculous plot featuring a really unpleasant group of people, very badly acted, I didn’t care who had done what to be honest. Kevin Whately had a fabulous time shamelessly over acting which was great fun to watch. You had to suspend disbelief just a bit too often - like why the coroner kept confiding in this wretched family even when they were suspects. The best bit though was right at the end, as they all stood and watched the disputed house slowly burn down - police in attendance, but no sign of the fire brigade, as it just burned away. Maybe they’d run out of budget and couldn’t afford to hire a fire engine, or there were no more locals willing to act as extras in this embarrassing tripe.

I was surprised how much I liked this film. Beautifully shot and acted, the decadent entitlement of the Catton family is shown in merciless and often hilarious detail. Yet the beautiful, spoiled, charming Felix, done away with half way through, is possibly the only person in the whole film with anything approaching a moral compass - while the apparent underdog turns out to be the most psychopathic of the lot. Brideshead meets American Psycho.

No real characterisation so it was difficult to care what happens. Incredibly disjointed. Woodenly acted, with a variety of very strange and unconvincing accents. It actually made us laugh when I don’t think we were meant to, so ridiculous was it at times - for example when they were all running round in the snow wearing little brown budgie smugglers and shouting at the sky. More than once I was reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.