CATTCCH H -UPUTPVN—OIWN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

Sugar Rush

Channel4.com, series 1 & 2 First broadcast in 2005, now available in its entirety for a limited time, this is another chance to watch what is a fairly loose adaptation of Julie Burchill’s novel, Sugar Rush. The book apparently took her “10 afternoons” to write, and was described as the first lesbian teen novel. Set in Brighton, Olivia Hallinan plays Kim, a girl who transfers from the private school she has been attending to the local comprehensive, where she meets Sugar, played by Lenora Crichlow, and falls hopelessly in love. Sugar is sophisticated, smart-assed and reckless, the perfect antidote to Kim’s more middle-class, uptight family, and Kim falls hard for her, probably aided by her own sense of insecurity and anxiety over whether her parents may be about to divorce.

There is plenty of drug-taking, binge-drinking and casual sex, but the heart of the series is the friendship between Sugar and Kim, and the way they respond to the complicated things life throws at 15-year-olds. Series 1 is stronger than 2, which struggles with plot, but the acting from Hallinan and Crichlow throughout is excellent.

The Kennedys: After Camelot

RTE Player, episodes 1&2, ends July 10th “If they’re killing Kennedys then my children are targets. I want to get out of this,” was the line that apparently drove Jackie Kennedy into the arms of Aristotle Onassis. Here, in this sequel to Emmy-winning The Kennedys, Katie Holmes (left) plays the iconic Jackie, seen trying to pick up her life after the assassination of John F, followed swiftly by that of Bobby. Sweet-voiced and strangely frail, she speedily removes herself to Skorpios, leaving the Kennedys to battle with the expectations of America and their own family dynamic. Matthew Perry is Teddy Kennedy, hopelessly embroiled in the horror that was Chappaquiddick, while Kristen Hager plays his wife Joan, and Diana Hardcastle is Kennedy matriarch Rose.

It’s a much-told story, but one we seem willing to endlessly revisit.