Album reviews

THE HERMES EXPERIMENT

sees the group pair their distinctive country style with a pulsating electronic beat alongside lyrics that tackle topics including gun control, abortion and climate change.

The band have never shied away from sparking controversy and the rest of the album is similarly thoughtful and provocative. However songs such as Texas Man and For Her are more in line with the band’s signature relaxed, melodic approach. The album sees The Chicks return to their best.

TOM HORTON

ELLIE GOULDING

Ellie Goulding’s new album is what you might call a lesson in pop perfection. It is her first album since 2015 and Brightest Blue has been worth the wait. Set in two parts – Brightest Blue and EG.0. – this album is packed with exciting collaborations (Lauv, Diplo and more). It feels like a journey through the life of the singer, and you feel the progression in the lyrics as you listen.

Tracks like Start feel nostalgic, with a switch to Power and the Love I’m Given, which references “a sense of change” being afoot. As a musician, Goulding knows her voice and she knows how to use it, but she also has a knack for adding those smaller details, sometimes in the form of an unlikely collaboration, that really take her music to another level.

KATHY IFFLY

BOYZLIFE

What’s the story?

How To Build A Girl.

I’ll need more information.

It’s the film adaptation of Caitlin Moran’s novel starring Beanie Feldstein as Johanna

Morrigan, a curvy, bright, funny, working-class 16-year-old who, in 1993, leaves behind her chaotic family life in a Wolverhampton council estate for the bright lights of London.

What else?

Our heroine reinvents herself as eccentric, top-hat-wearing music critic Dolly Wilde – it is semi-autobiographical and based on the life of Moran who was an aspiring journalist in the 1990s, and had a similar upbringing as part of a large family on a council estate. Moran worked on the screenplay for the coming-ofage comedy with Scottish writer John Niven. It is directed by Coky Giedroyc, known for Stella Does Tricks, Women Talking Dirty and The Virgin Queen.

Tell me about the cast.

There’s the excellent Feldstein, who you may recognise from Booksmart and Lady Bird. How To Build A Girl also stars Emma Thompson, Paddy Considine, Alfie Allen and Chris O’Dowd.

Anything further?

The film was set to have its UK release on July 3 but with cinemas still closed then due to the coronavirus pandemic, will now be available for online streaming.

When can I watch?

How To Build A Girl launches on Amazon Prime Video this Friday.

SUSAN SWARBRICK

Jack Whitehall: I’m Only Joking (Netflix, from Tue)

After a string of acting appearances, and teaming up with his dad for various travelogues and chat shows, viewers might be forgiven for forgetting that Jack Whitehall started out as a stand-up comedian, winning awards early on at the Edinburgh Fringe. Now he returns to the live comedy stage for this, his second original Netflix special, filmed at Wembley Stadium in January. The hour-long set promises tales about his aforementioned father – and sometime TV partner – as well as an uncomfortable story from the Berlin airport.

If you mention the five families of New York then for many people it will bring to mind classic gangster movie The Godfather, in which Marlon Brando, as Vito Corleone, headed up the most powerful of the Mafia clans ruling over the Big Apple. Fact or fiction?

Well as it turned out, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 movie, and the novel by Mario Puzo on which it was based, was not a million miles from the truth: in the 1970s, the city was ruled with a bloody fist by five such families – until, that is, a group of federal agents tried the unthinkable.

This hard-hitting documentary series chronicles how the agents took on the Mafia empires of NYC at the height of their powers. And as any Godfather fan knows, you don’t mess with the Mafia.

Rogue Trip (Disney+, from Fri)

Bob Woodruff and his son Mack embark on an epic journey to six regions mostly known for conflict – Colombia, Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Ukraine.

As a former war correspondent who was severely injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006, Bob has seen, and lived through, the worst of what these places have to offer. Now he and Mack explore the best of them. Going off the guidebook, they find themselves hiking, descending waterfalls with former rebel fighters and diving and parasailing their way through some of the most spectacular locations on the planet, sharing more than a few touching moments on what is, surely, the ultimate the ultimate father-son bonding trip.

Offering to the Storm (Netflix, from Fri)

Spanish police inspector Amaia Salazar investigates the death of a stillborn baby girl and the arrest of the father. Matters are further complicated by the discovery of red marks on the baby’s face, indicating she could have been murdered. Marta Etura stars in this thriller.

BARRY DIDCOCK’S FAVOURITE PODCAST

Listen Out For:

Things My Mother Never Told Me, Radio 4, Wednesday, 11am.

Sindhu Vee (whose own mother is quite the character) talks to fellow comedians about their mums.

TEDDY JAMIESON

Jack Whitehall