7 h. ago How many people died in Grenfell Tower fire and who were the victims?

Netflix's documentary Grenfell: Uncovered features interviews from survivors and those who lost loved ones in the tragedy

Events

8 h. ago Grenfell: Uncovered review – heartwrenching account of avoidable tragedy

Bleak, enraging documentary combines firsthand accounts of the disaster with appalling record of official negligenceThe 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London which caused 72 deaths is now the subject of Olaide Sadiq’s heartwrenching and enraging documentary, digging at the causes and movingly interviewing survivors and their families, whose testimony is all but unbearable. At the very least, the film will remind you that when politicians smugly announce they wish to make a bonfire of regulations, they should be taken, under police escort if necessary, and made to stand at the foot of the tower. As for the housing secretary at the time of the tower’s refurbishment, the abysmally arrogant Eric Pickles, he was made a life peer in 2018.With the very considerable help of the housing-issues journalist Peter Apps, the film shows how the horror was created by a perfect storm of incompetence, mendacity, greed, and (that heartsinking phrase) systemic failure. The local council were keen to spruc...

Politics

9 h. ago Netflix’s Grenfell: Uncovered is a raw, urgent film that pulls no punches

The question at the centre of this powerful film is whether we’ve done enough to prevent the catastrophe from repeating itself

Politics

10 h. ago Director of Netflix's Grenfell: Uncovered's personal connection to devastating fire

72 people lost their lives in the tragedy that occured in 2017

Events

15 h. ago Grenfell Uncovered on Netflix review: this litany of failures is rage

Eight years after the disaster, this documentary examines how we got there, to devastating effect

Events

26 h. ago HS2 trains could run slower than expected to cut spiralling costs

HS2 is now expected to open after 2033 as transport secretary Heidi Alexander called its management under the Tories a ‘litany of failure’

Politics

33 h. ago Netflix’s The Waterfront is pure American soap with occasional flashes of grizzly violence

New maritime drama, starring Holt McCallany, is predictable to a fault, but it’s hard not to keep watching

Events

33 h. ago Netflix’s The Waterfront is pure American soap with occasional flashes of grisly violence

New maritime drama, starring Holt McCallany, is predictable to a fault, but it’s hard not to keep watching

Events

34 h. ago The Waterfront review – this Dawson’s Creek for grownups is perfect summer nonsense

Twists come thick and fast, there’s tons of plot and action is set in a water-based community. The creator of the 90s megahit’s new show is an opportunity to wallow in nostalgia – albeit with added drug runningDo you miss Dawson’s Creek now that you’re all grown up? Kevin Williamson sees you. And he has reinvented his late-90s/early-00s tale of a close knit community round a watery area for an adult market. Not adult-adult, you understand – we’re talking drug-running and crumbling family empire rather than sauce – but the main ingredients of his first TV hit are all here. Namely, masses of plot and some lightly sketched characters to keep it moving swiftly enough that nobody has time to stop and say “Hang on, fellas – I simply don’t believe a word of this!” Those of us who sat through several young women choosing Dawson over Pacey are only here for the second part of the phrase “credible drama”.The Buckleys and their fleet have long dominated the small fishing town of Havenport, Nor...

Politics

39 h. ago HS2 scheme 'will not be completed on time' as report highlights 'litany' of failures behind '£100billion white elephant' railway line

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs the gargantuan project was an 'appalling mess', with an audit revealing endemic overspending, hundreds of millions of pounds wasted and poor decision-making.

Economics

2 w. ago Straw review – Taraji P Henson rises above Tyler Perry’s tortured Netflix thriller

The Oscar nominated actor gives a powerhouse performance as a woman pushed to the edge but the punishing film around her does a disserviceTyler Perry is not beating the allegations. For decades, the content-creating studio chief has been roundly criticized for making the traumatization of Black women a persistent theme in his work. In Straw, his latest exercise in misogynoir for Netflix, he pulls out all the stops to break the camel’s back.The guinea pig for this cultural stress test is Janiyah (Taraji P Henson), an apex Perry caricature who is past the point of exhaustion. Her loud, hot and dumpy apartment isn’t all that keeps her in perennial discomfort. There’s also a precocious young daughter (Gabrielle E Jackson) with nagging medical issues, and that eviction notice on the dining table. She can’t make ends meet despite working three jobs, and her cashier’s position at the local food desert grocery store is especially thankless. When an angry customer spikes a bottle of fizzy dr...

Politics

3 w. ago Dept. Q Review: Is the new Netflix crime drama set in Edinburgh worth watching?

There’s a new crimefighter on the streets of Auld Reekie in a hotly-anticipated new Netflix series - and we’ve seen the first two episodes.

Events

3 w. ago Dept Q review – this excellent crime drama is a grimy, gothic treat

After getting another officer killed, a detective is forced to head up a cold-case department in a dank basement. This Scotland-based adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Danish crime novels is fantastic, rich TVIt must be so galling for an actor to be blessed with just the right face for one kind of part. Galling for good actors anyway. Pretty sweet for the others – “You need a face someone would definitely kill for? Put this useless hunk/babe in there and just move the scenery round them.”Matthew Goode is, nomenclaturally and otherwise, one of the former, but cursed with a face best described as “modern patrician” and has therefore been the first port of call for just about every period drama there has been for the last 20 years. He’s been in everything from Brideshead Revisited (as Charles Ryder) on the big screen, to Downton Abbey (Henry Talbot) and The Crown (where at least he got to play that bounder Lord Snowdon) on the small one. Judging by the relish with which he seizes the c...

Events

3 w. ago Netflix’s ‘divisive’ new comedy series has fans ‘in a chokehold’ while others can't stand it

Tyler Perry's new political sitcom She the People dropped its first eight episodes this week

Culture

4 w. ago Netflix’s new film Grenfell: Uncovered exposes the shocking failures behind deadly tower tragedy

New documentary reveals the preventable mistakes and systemic neglect that led to the disaster that shook London- eight years on

Events

4 w. ago Grenfell survivors and bereaved call for justice in Netflix documentary trailer

Grenfell: Uncovered launches on June 20.

Events

4 w. ago Fear Street: Prom Queen review – disappointing Netflix teen slasher

After a surprisingly effective trilogy of horrors based on the RL Stine novels, a return to the throwback franchise is a frustratingly inert letdownThe Fear Street trilogy was one of the many casualties of the cinema-shuttering Covid pandemic, originally scheduled for an ambitious one-film-a-month summer release by Fox before being offloaded to Netflix. But while it was a little disappointing to see horror films made with such unusual cinematic flair released straight-to-smartphone, it was also a wise business decision, the unorthodox original strategy unlikely to have paid off.Based on the series of books by teen favourite RL Stine, the three films set up an exciting, expansive world, shifting between the 1660s to the 1970s to the 1990s, gliding from teen slasher to queer romance to supernatural fantasy and within a genre that typically fails to win critics over, they were surprise successes (each boasts a Rotten Tomatoes rating over 80%). It was a rousing win for writer-director L...

Politics

4 w. ago Meghann Fahy’s Netflix drama Sirens is an uneven but beguiling slice of summer escapism

Two very different sisters fall into the orbit of a charismatic billionaire’s wife in yet another super-rich satire

Events

4 w. ago Sirens review – Julianne Moore’s utterly addictive cult drama is preposterously fun

This endlessly entertaining study in class and family is a witty, star-packed treat that zips through five tight episodes. Here’s hoping for a second seasonAre you ready for some fun? Don’t you deserve it? I think we all do – life’s awful – so I gladly present to you Sirens, which is The White Lotus meets all the good series that Nicole Kidman has been in, with just a dash of Ryan Murphy-esque camp to make it all go with an especially zingy swing! Welcome!It is a tale of two sisters and a superrich villain whose cult-like lifestyle threatens to come between them. Older sister Devon (Meghann Fahy – yes, of White Lotus fame, taking a much meatier part this time and running with it) is a semi-functioning alcoholic who is caring for their increasingly difficult father while working a minimum wage job at the local falafel joint and banging her married boss on the side. When she sends little sister Simone (House of the Dragon’s Milly Alcock and astonishing child actor in Tim Minchin’s hea...

Events