August Cultural Highlights with some 5 star recommendations

September 5, 2025

Discover what we liked in August with 5 stars for a book and TV Documentary.

Television

Traditionally, television, even in the age of streaming, has a paucity of offerings in the holiday month of August  and then in September the new glossy shows are unleashed, and the staple Autumn favourites return, such as Strictly.

We struggled to find much to excite this month. The big release was Alien Earth, a prequel series to the original Alien film. Wandering around a crashed research spacecraft waiting for aliens to leap out from the shadows became a bit too much. Several detective shows returned but the single episode crime drama such as Ripley and Annika (although always good to watch Nicola Walker) become too formulaic and stretch credibility, although Channel 4’s Italian drama, Inspector Gerri, show promise with two episodes devoted to solving the crime in question.    

Lucy Letby:  Beyond Reasonable Doubt  ITV1

★★★★★

There has been a spate of Lucy Letby documentaries recently as the evidence mounts that perhaps she is innocent. In 2023 she was convicted of the murder of seven babies and seven attempted murders. Unsurprisingly, she was labelled “Britain’s worst child serial killer” eclipsing the murders of Hindley and Brady.

In the face of evidence produced at her trial, it would be an open and shut case and that was reflected by the evidence provided by her defence. Since then, the evidence has been questioned by a range of experts and what this documentary does so well is put sentiment to one side and present step by step explanations for the evidence used against her. You do question how safe the conviction was but to have her case re-examined would require new evidence and what is submitted now was available to her defence at the time. The question raised by this documentary is what is justice?  

Mix Tape iPlayer

★★★☆☆

A four-part , double-timeline drama tells the story of freelance music journalist Dan O’Toole (Jim Sturgess) and author Alison Connor (Teresa Palmer), who grew up as teenagers in Sheffield and were each other’s first loves. Their younger selves are played (excellently) by newcomer Rory Walton-Smith and Florence Hunt respectively. Their scenes capture all the excitement and novelty, the heart-stopping importance of every minute spent together that teenagers in love conjure for themselves. The spark of their relationship are the mix tapes Dan compiles for Alison. Dan comes from a stable  environment, Alison from a tough part of town with an alcoholic mother and an unpleasant boyfriend.

In the present day, they live on opposite sides of the world. Both are married and how might they reconnect via memories of mixed tapes. This is not a knockout drama but nevertheless enjoyable and the teenage couple more convincing than their elder selves.

Hostage Netflix

★★★☆☆

Suranne Jones and Julie Delpy star as the liberal British prime minister Abigail Dalton and populist French president Vivienne Toussaint in this classic slice of globetrotting Netflix fare. When Dalton’s husband Alex is abducted on a Médecins Sans Frontières mission in French Guiana, the only one who can ensure his release and safe return is Toussaint. But the abductors have something dodgy on her too and their demand is the resignation of Dalton but what is their ultimate objective? Suranne Jones is one of our stalwart television actors and invariably plays interesting and engaging characters.

Books

There Are Rivers in the Sky  Elif Shafak

★★★★★

Three characters are linked by a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. 

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. 

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband.

All three are linked by the discovery of an ancient poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh that emerged from the city of Nineveh on the bank of the river Tigris.

This is historical fiction at its best with three stories that build to emotional conclusions.

The Wasp Trap Mark Edwards

★★★☆☆

Six friends reunite in London to celebrate the life of their recently deceased ex-employer, a professor that brought them together in 1999 to help build a dating website based on psychological testing. But what is meant to be a night of nostalgia soon becomes a twisted and deadly game when the old friends find themselves held at gunpoint. They are given an ultimatum: reveal their darkest secrets to the group or pick each other off one-by-one.

It’s clear that this is related to what happened 25 years ago and we flip between the past and present. There are sufficient twists and turns to keep you engaged and a satisfying denouement.

The Tears of Autumn Charles McCarry

★★★★☆

Paul Christopher, an accomplished secret agent, suspects he knows both the orchestrator and the motive behind President Kennedy’s assassination. Yet his theory is so devastating to Kennedy’s legacy, and so perilous for the stability of foreign policy, that he is commanded to abandon his investigation.

Bound by his unwavering commitment to truth, Christopher finds himself unable to let go of his suspicions. Compelled by his conscience, he resigns from the Agency and undertakes a relentless investigation, determined to uncover the reality behind the event.

Well written and constructed, although at times stretching credibility, this is well worth reading.

Podcasts

Rosebud  Apple Podcast Audible.

★★★★☆

If you are wondering why Gyles Brandreth has called his podcast Rosebud it derives from the film Citizen Kane and the name Charles Foster Fane as a child gave his sled, symbolizing his lost innocence and happiness. Such a reference is entirely appropriate as the show’s focus centres on his guests’ earliest memories and childhood which are often seen as pivotal moments in their lives. 

Brandreth is a natural podcaster as his rich tones and friendly disposition draws a natural conversation from his guests. All celebrity interviews are invariably compared to Desert Island Discs and Rosebud doesn’tsuffer from such comparison as guests concentrate on their life trajectory as opposed to disc selection. We started with Gary Oldman and have graduated to Alison Steadman and a self-deprecating Bill Nighy, who as you will learn is a master of the taken-a-back expression.

Films

In the absence of quality television programmes, we’ve caught up on a couple of films both of which would fall in the category of true stories that we may have considered watching but never quite got round to it.

The Imitation Game  Netflix stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing breaker of the Germans Enigma code during World War 11. He leads a group of cryptanalysts who work in secret and against the clock in one of the most significant operations of the war. Ably supported by Charles Dance, Mark Strong, Keira Knightley, Cumberbatch is one of the few actors who could capture the tortured soul of Alan Turing in all of his social ungracefulness. Well worth watching.

Joy is of a similar trope to The Imitation Game in that before success is ultimately achieved, there are numerous failures and that put the project in jeopardy. The project here is the development of IVF which at the time was deeply controversial attacked on religious and moral grounds. What drives, Bill Nighy, James Naughton and the excellent, Thomasin McKenzie as obstetrician Dr Patrick Steptoe, Cambridge scientist Robert Edwards and embryologist nurse Jean Purdy, is that women who can’t give birth naturally should be allowed to do so scientifically. Popular opinion, driven by the Press, are unwilling or unable to grasp that IVF does not carry an increased risk of birth defects 

The trios 10-year quest is beset by professional and personal setbacks but eventually delivers Louise Joy Brown in 1978. Since then, over 14 million births are due to IVF treatment.

This is an approachable and humane account of a great moment in scientific history and both films are good examples of preconceived expectations being exceeded.

Visit our Culture Section and discover month by month recommendations and those in general categories.