FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY

STARRING: Florence Pugh, Lena Headey

The family that choke-slams together stays together in Stephen Merchant’s scrappy comedy – a movie about as subtle as the “bowling ball to the bollocks” one hopeful grunt has to take early on, but still a winning one. Based on a true story and produced by Dwayne Johnson, who also drops in for a Rocksize cameo, Fighting tells the unlikely tale of England’s wrestling-obsessed Knight family: ex-con Ricky (Nick Frost); his fuchsia-haired wife, Julia (Headey); and their nearly grown offspring, Zak (Jack Lowden) and Raya (Pugh).

With their lip rings and torn Megadeth T-shirts, the Knights look and sound like working-class understudies for the Osbournes, but they live for the beloved American pastime of WWE. So when a scout ( Vince Vaughn, who seems to carry the weight of the world in the soft grey pouches beneath his eyes) comes to London looking for new talent, Zak and Raya both make a grab for the golden ticket – a spot in WWE’S Florida training facility, and a chance to enter the actual televised ring. Only one sibling makes the cut; most fans who follow the league in real life will know which one.

Lowden and Pugh both bring a welcome depth to Merchant’s broad-strokes script. And the writer-director, best known for the original Office and Extras, does squeeze some good laughs (a meta Vin Diesel joke is brutally perfect) and even genuine pathos from Zak and Raya’s struggles as their diverging paths pull them further apart. Fighting’s arc may be as choreographed as any undercard match – and the outcome as clearly forecast – but the tears brought on by the movie’s last 10 minutes of rhinestoned Rocky triumph taste salty, and real.

(Out now)

We know from the outset that Bradley Edwards will face trial in July 2019 for the murders of three young women in the wellto-do suburb of Claremont, Perth. What this podcast hosted by The West Australian crime and investigative reporter Gary Adshead does is take listeners back to the late 1990s, when the killings of Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon occurred – and remained unsolved for decades. Adshead’s analytical approach to the evidence and police investigation provides great insight into how their suspect was ultimately found.