What We Are Watching, Reading, Listening To

Hustle, on Netflix, is more than just a sports drama. Adam Sandler stars as a NBA scout who puts it all on the line after finding a new talented player abroad. While we are not huge basketball fans, we always love a good underdog story.

After binging the first two seasons, we are so excited that Hacks on Amazon Prime is due for a third. If you haven’t watched it yet, you are in for a treat. Staring Jean Smart, the show focuses on a female comedian late in her successful career. But, really it’s a story of female friendship, packed with witty dialogue.

Combining the comedic chops of Steve Martin and Martin Short with the droll Selina Gomez proves surprisingly winning in Only Murders in the Building. When they all turn detective to find out who murdered their neighbour, they hit on the idea to record it as a podcast.  The second season is just being released (two episodes so far), with the three having been arrested as murder suspects themselves at the end of the first season.  It’s full of twisty plot turns, slightly weird celebrity cameos including Sting, Tina Fey and Amy Schumer and stylish New-Yorker-style graphics. We love it.

We devoured the BBC adaptation of Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love. It’s not as good as the book – but is still highly watchable and with a great soundtrack as chosen by Dolly.

Chums, by Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper, focuses on the education of a small group of political elites at Oxford A timely book given eleven of the fifteen postwar Prime Ministers attended the university.  Both informative and darkly funny.

We’ve almost finished reading A New Adventure (The Magic Faraway Tree) by Jacqueline Wilson to our kids and they are loving it.  Not a sequel exactly as it introduces a whole new new family of kids who visit the Enchanted Forest but it cleverly weaves in some of the old favourite characters such as Silky and Moonface to create a blend of the two that is never jarring.  It’s particularly successful when creating some of the new lands at the top of the Faraway Tree such as the Land of the Unicorns and the Land of the Dragons.  Just published, my kids are now waiting for Wilson to write the next one.

Having loved Kae Tempest at Glastonbury we’re now reading On Connection, their book that brings together thoughts about spoken word, performance and the deep need in each of us for creativity. The good news is that this can encompass all sorts of things: ‘Creativity is any act of love. Any act of making. It is usually applied to art-making but it can be applied to anything you do that requires focus, skill and ingenuity. It takes creativity to dress well, for example. To parent. To paint a windowsill. To give someone you love your full attention.’ It’s a slim paperback that’s philosophical, honest and hopeful.

We also recommend In Love with George Eliot by Kathy O’Shaughnessy, a fictional and imaginative retelling of the life of Marian Evans (aka George Eliot). This book is good because it’s so unexpected.  A slow burn start gives way to a gripping love story and a tale that is both intricate social history and a compendium of life challenges that make headlines today: the price of fame being one.

Tortoise always has great storytelling and their newest podcast is no exception. Londongrad focuses on Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard, and how Russian money has infiltrated the UK establishment and politics.

Season 7 of Slow Burn covers the history of Roe v Wade, giving some background to last week’s highly controversial opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court. Covering the people, the politics, and the court decisions that led to where the country is today.

When you listen to Adele talk about her childhood, marriage, birth of her son, divorce and death of her father, let alone her huge success as a singer on Desert Island Discs, it’s easy to forget that she is only 34.  One of Adele’s most appealing tenets is her honesty combined with the ability to laugh at herself.  It makes for a hugely entertaining and fascinating listen, whether she is talking about being smuggled into concerts as a child under her single mother’s trench coat  or how she landed her first contract.

Another Glastonbury joy was seeing Self Esteem perform under the stripes of the John Peel tent, to the bouncing devotion of fans beneath. Do listen to her interviewed in the latest episode of Table Manners with Jessie Ware and her Mum, Lennie. We’re long-time fans of this podcast, with a vast back catalogue including Emerald Fennell and Joanna Lumley.

And on our post-Glastonbury playlist is DakhaBrakha, a Ukrainian folk band we discovered at the festival. They played a brilliant set on the Pyramid stage, with decoratively painted instruments and traditional dress – do check them out on Spotify.