TV
If you only watch one, make it …
Making Life on Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure
BBC iPlayer
Summed up in a sentence This retrospective on one of David Attenborough’s greatest pieces of TV is packed with brilliant anecdotes.
What our reviewer said Victoria Bobin’s rollicking film is the story of a giant pop-culture moment, a gang of mates remembering how they sensed conditions were right to create a blockbuster masterpiece – if they were willing to flirt with failure and even death to get there.” Jack Seale
Further reading Happy centenary, David! Attenborough’s 100 most spectacular TV moments
Pick of the rest
Amandaland
BBC iPlayer
Summed up in a sentence The return of the much-loved Motherland spin-off, focusing on delusional, narcissistic mum Amanda.
What our reviewer said “Lucy Punch’s portrayal of Amanda is mesmerisingly convincing. Lumley is also magnetic as her mother, Felicity.’” Rachel Aroesti
Further reading ‘Everyone knows an Amanda!’ Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch on the return of comedy smash, Amandaland
You may have missed …
My Garden of a Thousand Bees
BBC iPlayer
Summed up in a sentence A gasp-inducing documentary about a man’s love for the insects that bumble around his garden … and ended up changing his life.
What our reviewer said “There is something pleasantly bee-like about Dohrn’s award-winning film. A leisurely thing, it drifts woozily around the photographer’s garden, picking up facts here and there and storing them like pollen in little pouches on the backs of its thighs. ” Sarah Dempster
The Artist
MGM+
Summed up in a sentence This period comedy, starring Mandy Patinkin as a Rhode Island robber baron, is a singular work of art.
What our reviewer said “It has a similar pugnacious whimsy, but with cold steel hidden in the folds of its grubby velvet gown.” Jack Seale
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Romeria
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Carla Simón’s distinctive drama in which a young woman arrives in a Spanish coastal city to meet the family of her dead father, who are hiding information about his life and death.
What our reviewer said “Simón has an instinctive and almost miraculous way of just immersing herself within extended freewheeling family scenes – her camera moving unobtrusively in the group, like another teenager at the party, quietly noticing everything.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Director Carla Simón: ‘I have feelings for Spanish culture and Catalan culture’
Pick of the rest
Our Land
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Documentary by Orban Wallace following right-to-roam campaigners as they offer bacchanalian antics and a heartfelt message in a wide-ranging exploration of the topic.
What our reviewer said “Ramblers are justified in keeping the pressure up and the take-home message is: opening up the glories of the countryside and nature itself to everyone is a universal good.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Momentum building for Scottish-style land access rights in England, says film
Kokuho
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Lee Sang-il’s heartfelt kabuki drama spans 50 years following the bond and rivalry between two young men who play the rigorously observed female roles in the traditional art form.
What our reviewer said “The emphasis is largely upon discipline and commitment in the service of art, a vocational self-immolation in which the transformation of pain into beauty is the whole point.” Peter Bradshaw
The Sheep Detectives
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Hugh Jackman plays a farmer in this Babe-style family film about plucky sheep who help solve a murder.
What our reviewer said “The great feelgood trick pulled off by this film is that the murder, involving a character we’ve been encouraged to like and invest in emotionally – much more so than in traditional detective stories – doesn’t get swamped with sadness and shock. The film scoots smartly past the death and brings us briskly on to the entertaining business of sheep-oriented crime detection.” Peter Bradshaw
Now streaming
Abouna
Mubi
Summed up in a sentence Chadian writer-director Mahamat Saleh Haroun’s beautifully gentle and lucid film about two boys’ forlorn attempt to find their father.
What our reviewer said “This movie has moments that linger in the mind: the boys running back from the cinema, the boys playing keepie-uppie in the street, the boys walking on their hands after looking for their father at the Chad-Cameroon border crossing, with all the insouciance of childhood, unable yet to comprehend the seriousness of what has happened to them.” Peter Bradshaw
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Iran and the Revolution by Homa Katouzian
Reviewed by John Simpson
Summed up in a sentence A landmark new account of the 1979 revolution provides context for current events.
What our reviewer said “The history of the Iranian revolution has been written many times, but I haven’t found an account as clear and free of preconceptions as this one.”
Pick of the rest
The Given World by Melissa Harrison
Reviewed by Alexandra Harris
Summed up in a sentence Six months in the life of a rural English village.
What our reviewer said “The small particularities are charged with a sense of cosmic change. This is concertedly a novel of, and for, an era of ecological crisis.”
Solace House by Will Maclean
Reviewed by Sam Leith
Summed up in a sentence Nineties-set gothic extravaganza in which students are caught up in the mystery of a haunted house.
What our reviewer said “It’s a great hotchpotch, working like mad to entertain and spook the reader. The 500-odd pages whip by.”
Lady C by Guy Cuthbertson
Reviewed by Blake Morrison
Summed up in a sentence A history of the social and cultural impact of DH Lawrence’s controversial novel.
What our reviewer said “Cuthbertson has been a diligent researcher, spending many hours trawling through archives and cuttings. He has even looked through the trial judge’s copy of the book, with its highlighting of rude words.”
You may have missed …
Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Reviewed by Emma Brockes
Summed up in a sentence Posthumously published memoir on the impact of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
What our reviewer said “Giuffre’s recollections of Prince Andrew, a man with whom she was allegedly forced to have sex three times, present him in an even more buffoonish and grotesque light.”
Further reading Virginia Giuffre on her abuse at the hands of Epstein, Maxwell and Prince Andrew
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Olof Dreijer: Loud Bloom
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Squiggling melodies and quizzical distortion banish the winter gloom Dreijer brought to his band the Knife.
What our reviewer said “Dreijer has created his own walled garden of psychedelia, conjuring the light and scent of a summer in bloom.” Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Pick of the rest
Aldous Harding: Train on the Island
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Lyrics about naked owls and eating rocks might be irksome to some – but there’s no denying that the alt-rocker’s fifth album is beguiling, tightly written and richly melodic.
What our reviewer said “A melodically gifted singer-songwriter, music that’s subtle but never bland; these are disarmingly straightforward pleasures that all the strangeness – mannered or otherwise – can’t obscure.” Alexis Petridis
Helen Charlston: A Poet’s Love
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Schumann’s Dichterliebe is at the heart of this disc from the mezzo-soprano and pianist Sholto Kynoch.
What our reviewer said “Charlston’s voice flows like molten lava, every word crystal clear.” Clive Paget
Ana Roxanne: Poem 1
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Essaying a broken heart, the New Yorker puts her voice front and centre for her most accessible work yet.
What our reviewer said “For the first time, we hear Roxanne’s lovely, wispy voice in lucid detail, as she contemplates loss and desire over slow and stripped-back compositions.” Safi Bugel
Now on …
Peter Grimes
Royal Opera House, London, to 28 May
Summed up in a sentence A gripping revival of Britten’s opera updates the staging to a present-day, left-behind English coastal town, with Allan Clayton excellent as the titular tormented fisher.
What our reviewer said “Clayton’s Grimes is a role in which he currently has few rivals”. Erica Jeal