This week’s home entertainment: from The Comey Rule to The Search
Television
The Comey Rule
Based on former FBI director James Comey’s 2018 memoir A Higher Loyalty, this feature-length drama, set over two double bills, focuses on Comey, played by Jeff Daniels, and his collision course with the incoming President Trump (an eerily accurate Brendan Gleeson). A panic-inducing reminder of recent history, ahead of November’s US election.
Wednesday 30 September, 9pm, Sky Atlantic
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Tiny World
Narrated by Ant-Man himself, Paul Rudd, this nature docuseries zooms in on the planet’s tiniest heroes. From the pygmy marmoset working out who is friend or foe to the midwife toad carrying its eggs to safety, it’s evidence of what creatures will do to survive.
Friday 2 October, Apple TV+
Freddie Flintoff: Living With Bulimia
In 2001, Freddie Flintoff was a rising star in English cricket but constant pressure around his weight led to him becoming bulimic, a battle that continued throughout his career. In this doc, Flintoff gets to grips with its impact.
Monday 28 September, 9pm, BBC One
Life
Writer and creator Mike Bartlett returns with a Doctor Foster spin-off of sorts. This new six-part drama follows the stories of residents of a large house divided into flats, one of which belongs to GP Gemma Foster’s neighbour Anna (Victoria Hamilton), who is now going by the name Belle. Alison Steadman, Peter Davison and Adrian Lester co-star.
Tuesday 29 September, 9pm, BBC One
Song Exploder
Hrishikesh Hirway’s hugely popular podcast – which has featured the likes of Solange, Metallica and St Vincent breaking down their creative processes – has been adapted for TV. Artists interviewed include Alicia Keys, plus REM on their hit Losing My Religion.
Friday 2 October, Netflix
Little Mix: The Search
After nine years of pop domination, the UK’s biggest girlband are switching from talent show winners to talent show scouts. The band have been scouring the country for performers to turn into a new supergroup who will have the chance to support them on tour, pandemic permitting.
Saturday 26 September, 7pm, BBC One
Honour
Keeley Hawes stars in this drama about the real-life murder in 2006 of Banaz Mahmod, a 20-year-old Iraqi Kurdish woman who was killed on the orders of her father and uncle after escaping an abusive marriage to live with another man. Hawes plays DCI Caroline Goode, who led the case.
Monday 28 September, 9pm, ITV
Podcasts
Driving the Green Book
Broadcaster Alvin Hall and social justice trainer Janée Woods Weber hit the road from Detroit to New Orleans in this moving podcast, gathering testimony from black Americans on how the historic travel guide The Negro Motorist’s Green Book was a lifeline for safe passage in the segregated south. A realistic counterpart to the Hollywood narratives.
Weekly, widely available
Today in Focus
Anushka Asthana presents the Guardian’s flagship daily news podcast, covering everything from the government’s Covid-testing meltdown to original Guardian investigations into sexual abuse in garment factories and the death of transport worker Belly Mujinga. The perfect way to keep track of the relentless news cycle.
Daily, the Guardian
Dads: The Podcast
Comic and recent dad Rory Scovel fronts this lighthearted podcast with co-host Ruthie Wyatt, grilling famous fathers on their parenting lessons and experiences, as well as their own relationships with Dad. Among those interviewed are late-night talkshow host Conan O’Brien, actor John Leguizamo and standup comic David Cross.
Weekly, widely available
The Gravy Train
A crack cocaine-smoking, late-night talkshow punchline or populist revolutionary and blueprint for Donald Trump? The legacy of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, who died in 2016, is an odd one. This eight-parter recalls his unlikely rise and sudden fall in vivid detail, never letting him off the hook while recognising the tragic aspects of his life story.
Widely available
Into the Zone
Novelist and journalist Hari Kunzru hosts this exploratory podcast focused on opposites and the malleability of borders. Topics covered include the separation of black and white culture through the prism of Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road, and how a trip to Stonehenge sparked questions around what makes a native and a migrant.
Weekly, widely available
Film
Enola Holmes (No cert)
(Harry Bradbeer) 123 mins
Is there anything that can resist a young adult update? Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things plays Sherlock Holmes’s teenage sister (with Henry Cavill as the detective, and Sam Claflin as his brother Mycroft), a proto-suffragette attempting to find out what has happened to her mother (played by Helena Bonham Carter).
Netflix
Miss Juneteenth (15)
(Channing Godfrey Peoples) 99 mins
Nicole Beharie stars as a former pageant winner pushing her daughter down the same path. This is not a stage-mom satire, though: the Miss Juneteeth contest, named for the day of slave freedom, represents a chance for African-American kids to break out of poverty.
In cinemas and on digital
Capital in the Twenty-First Century (12A)
(Justin Pemberton) 103 mins
The French economist Thomas Piketty published his seminal study of late-stage capitalism in 2013; now this documentary arrives to explain its thesis on income equality and economic fragility, courtesy of the New Zealand director Justin Pemberton.
In cinemas
Rebuilding Paradise (12A)
(Ron Howard) 91 mins
This documentary could not be more topical. Paradise is the Californian town almost completely destroyed in a 2018 wildfire. Howard describes the attempts to rebuild and revive the once-idyllic mountain community.
In cinemas and digital platforms
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (PG)
(Alastair Fothergill, Jonnie Hughes, Keith Scholey) 83 mins
The adored presenter offers his “witness statement” on the planet’s health and is in conversation with Michael Palin at a worldwide screening event on Monday.
In cinemas
