March 2026 Cultural Highlights There was plenty to enjoy this month

April 10, 2026

This is what we enjoyed watching, reading and listening to this month.

Television

Rooster Sky Comedy

★★★★

A successful writer of Pulp fiction, Steve Carell, is invited to give a reading at the college where his daughter is a tutor. Estranged from her husband, accidentally she burns down his house and to save her position, reluctantly, Carell agrees to teach literature for the remainder of the semester. That’s the basic plot.

Rooster is labelled as a comedy and I’m not sure that’s right. Yes, it’s light-hearted but not laugh out loud like some sitcoms or other comedic shows like Would I Lie To You which never fails to deliver laughs and for me, the funniest programme currently.

It would be hard to give Rooster a label, it’s not a drama, so it gets lumped under comedy. This doesn’t make it any less enjoyable as it’s well scripted and performed by the ensemble and Carell is always an easy watch. Perhaps I’m missing the comedic moments.

Gone ITVX
★★★★

A crime drama that initially looks like it might tread familiar ground, before quietly proving it has more on its mind.

The series centres on a missing wife, married to the headmaster of a private school, played by David Morrisey who, obviously becomes the prime suspect and who does himself no favours with his disengaged manner and aloofness. Eve Myles, ever dependable in this type of programme leads the investigation and over the course of the series changes her opinion of the prime suspect.

There’s enough originality to the plot to make this highly watchable and in the hands of less capable actors could have slipped into melodrama.

Dirty Business Ch4
★★★★

Channel 4 continues its long-standing tradition of politely but firmly dismantling the reputations of large corporations.

Through a mix of whistleblower testimony, expert analysis and quietly damning evidence, Dirty Business exposes another national scandal the dumping of sewage by the water companies into our rivers. It may lack some of the indignation and the miscarriage of justice of Mr Bates vs the Post Office, but it is yet another example of what corporations will do to avoid culpability.

What makes it worse, is that there is little evidence that we have a government capable of addressing these issues.

Love Story Disney+
★★★★

A retelling of the real-life romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, this is a love story already burdened—if that’s the word—with inevitability.

The series charts their meeting, courtship and marriage, set against the suffocating glare of public fascination. The two leads capture both the allure and the strain of a relationship lived almost entirely in the spotlight: he, the reluctant heir to a mythologised dynasty; she, increasingly uncomfortable with the role she’s been cast in.

The drama is at its best when it allows the cracks to show—the tension, the intrusion, the sense that something so private was never going to survive such intense scrutiny.

Elegant, melancholic, and just unsparing enough to justify its existence.

A Woman of Substance Ch4
★★★★

This new adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s novel places its faith squarely in its central performance—and is all the better for it.

Emma Harte’s journey from impoverished maid to retail magnate is played with a flinty determination that resists sentimentality. The supporting cast orbit her rise—sometimes allies, often obstacles—but it’s her sheer force of will that drives the narrative.

This is easy watching and of the kind that when it first aired in 1991 would be essential family viewing. Schedulers are constantly resurrecting shows from the past and this is a more than welcome resurrection.

Scarpetta Prime Video
★★★

When casting an actor for a new series, Nicole Kidman must dominate the discussion. More than most of her contemporaries, she switches easily from film to TV and has a track record of success in the smaller medium. This is one of her lesser accomplishments. She plays the role of Dr Kay Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell’s celebrated forensic pathologist, and whilst bringing a cool authority to investigations, she’s less convincing when dealing with her personal life especially her confrontational relationship with her sister, played exuberantly by Jamie Lee Curtis.

It’s handsomely made and intermittently gripping, but never quite shakes the feeling that it ought to be sharper, stranger, or more balanced.

Dynasty: The Murdochs Netflix

★★★★

Proof, if any were needed, that real life continues to outdo fiction when it comes to dynastic power struggles.

Charting the rise of Rupert Murdoch and the increasingly fraught question of succession among his children, the series unfolds like a corporate tragedy in slow motion. Interviews and archive footage paint a picture of ambition that is both relentless and, at times, faintly absurd as Rupert plays his siblings off each other to test their suitability for the crown. Bringing everything to a head is the News of the World hacking scandal and there’s much pleasure to be had revisiting that drama.

There are echoes of Succession, inevitably, though the absence of scripted dialogue only makes the underlying tensions feel more acute.

Paradise Series 2 Disney+

★★★★

Series 1 focused on the threat to life on earth and the escape to a bunker of the chosen ones. One of the main character’s was one of the US President’s personal bodyguards and under who’s watch the President is murdered.

There were just enough plot threads to make Series 1 entertaining and interesting. The problem for many of these programmes is that a commitment to further series depends on reaction to the first and thus sequels often disappoint as plot development fails to capitalise on what was originally created.

Paradise Series 2 is an exception as plot lines concentrated more on what was going on outside the bunker and this creates a far greater sense of danger and involves more interesting characters.

Series 2 has a better sense of direction in the development of the story giving rise to the belief that future series are already commissioned and equally well constructed.  

Clash of the Superpowers: America vs China BBCiPlayer

★★★★

A sober and impressively lucid examination of the defining geopolitical rivalry of the 21st century.

Through contributions from diplomats, economists and political analysts, the series maps the gradual escalation between the United States and China, from trade disputes to technological competition and beyond.

What emerges is not a simple binary conflict, but a complex and evolving relationship shaped as much by interdependence as by rivalry.

What is clearly apparent is that Xi Jinping, President of China, is far more capable than President Trump when playing a high stakes game and therefore there is only likely to be one winner.

Podcasts

Lives Less Ordinary  BBC Sounds

★★★★

A reminder, if one were needed, that real life remains far stranger—and often more moving—than fiction.

Hosted by India Rakusen, Lives Less Ordinary tells extraordinary true stories from across the globe: chance encounters, life-altering decisions, and moments that hinge on the kind of coincidence most scriptwriters would be told to tone down.

Rakusen allows the subjects to take centre stage. There’s no need for embellishment when the material is this strong, and the podcast wisely resists the temptation to overproduce.

Well worth listening to as many of the stories live long in the memory.

Inheritance : Samsung  BBC Sounds

★★★★

A corporate saga that plays out with all the intrigue of a dynastic thriller, only with higher stakes and fewer scripted lines.

Inheritance charts the rise of the Samsung empire and, more pointedly, the complicated legacy of the Lee family at its helm. From the founding vision to boardroom battles and questions of succession, the series unpacks how power, money and family become hopelessly entangled.

What emerges is less a business story than a study in control—who has it, who wants it, and what happens when it’s contested. The storytelling is crisp, the detail absorbing, and the implications often unsettling.

Everything Is Fake and Nobody Cares BBC Sounds

★★★★

Hosted by Jamie Bartlett, this podcast explores the increasingly porous boundary between reality and performance in the digital age—deepfakes, online identities, conspiracy cultures and the uneasy sense that authenticity itself may be becoming obsolete.

Bartlett is an engaging, occasionally wry guide, equally at home unpacking complex ideas as he is poking gentle fun at the absurdities of internet culture. The series is at its best when it leans into its central question: if everything can be faked, what, if anything, still matters?

Provocative, timely, and just disconcerting enough to linger.

Books

Dead Heat Sabine Durrant

★★★★

Former journalist Matt Grimshaw’s life is at a low ebb. He’s been ‘let go’ by the paper where he’s worked for years, and his relationship with his long-term girlfriend has come unstuck.

So when an invitation arrives from his two closest friends, Celia and Adam Murphy, to join them at their house in Greece, it’s the perfect opportunity to write his much put-off screen-play.

When a wealthy newcomer takes possession of a nearby big house and throws lavish parties, events and relationships become more complicated.

Sabine Durrant has a reputation for creating suspense in idyllic situations and this one doesn’t disappoint.

How to Get Away with Murder Rebecca Philpson

★★★★

A fourteen-year-old girl is found murdered in a local park and one of the detectives assigned to the case has returned from six months leave after recovering from a breakdown she suffered at work.

What makes this different from similar tales is that one of the clues found at the scene is a self-help book called How To Get Away With Murder penned by someone claiming to be the most successful serial killer of all time. The books deals with methodology and past victims and thus the truth or fiction of these acts has to be determined.

It’s well-paced and written and draws towards a satisfactory conclusion. 

The Artful Anna Harris Tracy Maton

★★★★

This bears the hallmarks of The Talented Mr Ripley. A sleepy Somerset village where Anna lives with her partner and a life of few surprises beckons. Then charismatic Sofia enters her life and challenges her views on virtually everything and becomes a source of infatuation.

What’s clever about this book is that it never goes in the direction you expect. Just as quickly as Sofia enters the narrative so she disappears. Anna is not a particularly likeable character, yet we stay on her side as slowly more is revealed.

This is a debut novel with the promise of a new talent which, hopefully, will not suffer the same fate as some TV sequels.

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