film – Maddie Grigg

September reviews

I’ve been a bit lax lately when it comes to reading books, being so caught up in promoting my own. (In case you didn’t know, Plashy Fen comes out in paperback on 29 September. As you can imagine, I’m very excited.)

I had been reading a doorstep of a novel, The Year of the Locust (2023) by Terry Hayes, and was finding it very easy to sink into its short chapters and fast pace.

However, I’m about an eighth of the way in and have decided to quit while I’m ahead. I don’t feel much engaged with the protagonist and there is more to life than ploughing through a big book just for the sake of it.

This spy thriller, published in 2023 is more up Mr Grigg’s street than mine, which is what I initially thought about Hayes’ debut I Am Pilgrim (2013) before I picked it up at a book swap a few years ago.

I couldn’t put it down, it was gripping.

My well-read friend, The Fragrant Mrs Putter, told me she felt the same, so I was in good company.

It still hasn’t been made into a film yet, which I find astonishing, although there are references online to Pilgrim being in production.

I’m about to embark on The Cuckoo and the Cuckquean (2025) by Patricia Román. The novel is about Spanish Suffragettes – a new subject for me, but it’s good to move out of one’s comfort zone every now and then.

I finally read Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure (1999) as part of research into one of my family stories and, although I still don’t very much like Hemingway as a man, it confirmed my view of Palin as an extremely engaging and talented writer.

While I haven’t been reading, I have been listening to quite a few podcasts.

I’m hooked on both the UK and the US versions of Goalhanger’s The Rest Is Politics, which are such ear openers when it comes to staying informed about the corridors of power and the strange things happening on planet Earth right now.

The BBC’s Disclosure Investigates series are really good. I’ve listened to two standout documentaries – Charmain And The Prophet {2026) and Matched With A Predator (2025). The programmes’ common link is the horrendous consequences of controlling behaviour by men over women.

To provide some light in the darkness, I’ve also watched The Magic Faraway Tree (2026), ostensibly a children’s film based on the book of the same name by Enid Blyton.

It was beautifully done, and so, so enjoyable, with the original story updated but still with a glorious, life-affirming fantasy at its heart.

Fearing I might have gone a bit soft in my old age, I looked up the reviews afterwards to see if the critics agreed with my verdict. They did, wholeheartedly.

We’ve also binge watched Last Tango In Halifax (2012-2020, BBC) – great, character-led drama which is down to the brilliant script of the show’s creator, Sally Wainwright, and the superb cast.

Now starting, rather late in the day, on Ted Lasso (2020-present, Apple TV) and enjoying it immensely.

Can’t wait for the new series of the BBC’s Small Prophets (2026) to appear on our television screens. And with Slow Horses (2022-present, Apple TV) flying out of the traps, telly just got a whole lot better.

TV, films and books

What we’re watching

We’re into the second series of Trigger Point (ITV) and absolutely hooked.

Vicky McClure is mesmerising in this drama about a police bomb disposal team in London. As Lana Washington, she’s cool, complicated, flawed, tormented by the past and bloody brilliant at her job.

The first series just flew by and now we’re settling down for a bumpy ride.

Hats off to creator and writer Daniel Brierley, who was mentored by Line of Duty‘s Jed Mercurio. Brierley was new to television and developed the series during a television bursary scheme.

It’s real edge of your seat stuff. Awards await.

We’ve just seen the film Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character. It’s long and patchy and, a bit like the curate’s egg, good in parts.

The battle scenes, particularly the deadly icy ballet at Austerlitz and the finale at Waterloo, are choreographed to a nanosecond. They are incredible to watch (albeit, in my case, through closed fingers).

Phoenix is a compelling Napoleon, a relentless genius obsessed by power, his love for his country and the resourceful Josephine (Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret in The Crown). He’s steely, creepy and a little unhinged, like The Joker, Commodus and the Emperor of France all rolled into one.

What I’m reading

I’ve got my hands on a review copy of The Ministry of Time and I can’t put it down. I also can’t believe it’s a debut novel.

Kaliane Bradley has written a piece of fiction which cuts across genres – time travel, romance, comedy and spy thriller – and it’s a cracker. It’s out later this year.

Set in the near future, at the centre of the story is a nameless protagonist, a civil servant who has to act as a ‘bridge’ between her charge, naval officer Graham Gore, who was First Lieutenant on the Erebus during the Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended in 1850 with the loss of all 129 officers and crewmen.

The book twists and turns with a style so easy to read I’ll probably finish it by the end of the week. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance review copy of the book.

I’ve been watching and listening to…

As well as consuming books as if they were chocolates, I am also an avid listener of music, podcasts and watcher of television.

One of my Christmas presents was a set of wireless headphones. You can’t imagine how delighted I am to be working at my laptop, playing my electronica full blast without anyone saying: ‘I’m sorry, but what kind of music is that?’

To be honest, you probably can imagine how delighted Mr Grigg is at not having to listen to my musical choices. I think if he has to hear one more minute of BBC Radio 6 Music, he’ll probably take a short walk off a long pier.

It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that he’s the one who gave me the headphones.

They are very handy for listening to podcasts of my choice.

This week, I’ve been glued to the BBC’s Intrigue: Million Dollar Lover, which tells the true story, in real time, of an 80-year-old rich woman and her 57-year-old companion, who turned up penniless and homeless in her Californian beach town, became her gardener and then her lover.

Hats off to the reporter, Sue Mitchell, who, with the couple’s consent, began recording them, just because the idea of their relationship piqued her curiosity. Little did she to know that an incredible story – with equal elements of love, dark secrets, family discord and manipulation – was about to land in her lap.

You can listen to the entire series on BBC Sounds.

I’m not giving anything away but I thoroughly recommend this podcast, which was scripted by the always reliable Winifred Robinson.

I’m now into Episode 3 of June: Voice of A Silent Twin, which tells the strange and tragic story of Black twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, who in 1982 were sent to Broadmoor after a crime spree in rural Wales. At the age of 19, they were the youngest women to be incarcerated at the notorious secure unit.

It’s a fascinating and sad story with which I’m familiar, but what makes this different is hearing directly from June herself, who now lives a quiet life in Wales. Jennifer died at just 29, not long after the sisters were moved from Broadmoor to a more open clinic in Bridgend.

The series is currently unfolding on BBC Sounds.

On the telly, I’ve been watching, open-mouthed, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which has been on ITV every night this week, with all episodes available on ITV X. It’s very uncomfortable to see how a once much-loved British institution completely wrecked the lives of hardworking sub-postmasters and mistresses across the land.

A great British cast and efficient script plonks the viewer firmly on the side of the underdog. How could the Post Office treat people so badly? And doesn’t it show that if you work in isolation, with no-one on your side to turn to, how destructive corporate bureaucracy can be?

It’s an astonishing true story of arrogance and incompetence and now, thanks to television, millions more people know about this terrible injustice. The repercussions are still being felt.

I’m hoping to catch Wonka in the cinema before Timothee Chalamet disappears behind his chocolate factory gates. The BBC says it’s ‘relentlessly wacky and over the top’, which, to be fair, sounds just like my kind of film.