16 h. ago I Fought the Law review – Sheridan Smith is utterly believable in this true crime story worth sharing with the world

Like the groundbreaking legal case at its centre, the carefully made four-part series can feel slow in parts

Events

4 d. ago Seascraper by Benjamin Wood review – a story that sings on the page

A young shrimp fisher’s horizons are broadened by the arrival of a stranger in this atmospheric Booker-listed taleYou don’t think you need a novella about a folk-singing shrimp fisher living with his mother on a fictional stretch of isolated coast until you read Benjamin Wood’s Booker-longlisted fifth novel, Seascraper. Wood conjures wonders from this unlikely material in a tale so richly atmospheric you can almost taste the tang of brine and inhale the sea fog.As unexpected as his previous four books – which range from a campus intrigue (The Bellwether Revivals) to a sensitive study of a Glaswegian painter (The Ecliptic) – Seascraper follows the daily trials of Tom Flett, a “shanker” who scrapes the sand for its yield at low tide with his trusty horse and wagon, risking his life in a job that is simultaneously boring and dangerous. Tom is clearly in the Hardyesque tradition of unworldly young men who tend the land or work with their hands (Gabriel Oak, Jude Fawley), and it’s this t...

Events

6 d. ago With a disaster this devastating, there was no need for hyperbole, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

The first hour of this three-part documentary recounted the details almost in real time, from the first warnings of gas leaks on the North Sea oil rig, to the explosions that destroyed it, in July 1988.

Events

6 d. ago Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story review – this oil rig horror is up there with Chornobyl

Shocking and superb, this documentary is packed with terrifying details of the notorious 1988 catastrophe, from the fire that could be seen from 120 miles away to the squashed tomatoesOn the evening of 6 July 1988, the Piper Alpha oil production platform in the North Sea suffered a catastrophic gas explosion, followed by a conflagration that destroyed the structure; 167 people were killed, and almost all the physical evidence of what had occurred became charred debris, lost to the waves. After the disaster, a public inquiry struggled to form a complete picture of the event, for reasons that also make it a hard subject for documentary-makers.Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story copes with the challenge superbly, leaning heavily on survivor testimony – 61 men escaped from the rig – and combining it with a simple 2D diagram of the platform’s layout to give us the fullest picture possible. It doesn’t have the special-effects budget that would be required to simulate the ferocity of th...

Events

9 d. ago Horrifying last moments of 167 killed in one of Britain's biggest tragedies

The Piper Alpha disaster was one of the UK's biggest tragedies, with 167 people losing their lives in just minutes as an oil rig off the coast of Aberdeen went up in a wall of flames

Events

2 w. ago Climate activists spill 1,000 litres of fake blood over North Sea oil rig

Greenpeace activists scaled a Shell fossil fuel rig and unfurled a massive 96 square metre canvas across its side, drenching it in a crimson liquid on Wednesday, August 13.

Events