The Walworth Farce, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - dysfunctional Irish myth-making

★★★★ THE WALWORTH FARCE, SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE ELEPHANT Four spot-on performances confirm that Enda Walsh's queasy thriller is here to stay

Four spot-on performances confirm that Enda Walsh's queasy thriller is here to stay

The farce in question is fast and furious, but not often hilariously funny; that’s because it’s the invention of a scary Irish dad who forces his sons to act it out with him every day in their seedy Walworth Road flat. Go with conventional expectations and you’ll be wrong-footed, or downright disappointed; Enda Walsh pushes boundaries, pulls the dirty rug from under our feet. Vividly acted, directed and designed, this revival of his 2006 two-acter suggests it’s a masterpiece.

Decision to Leave review - sly, slow-burning love and death

★★★★ DECISION TO LEAVE Sly, slow-burning love and death in Park Chan-wook's romantic noir

Cop and alluring suspect collide in Park Chan-wook's romantic noir tragedy

In Park Chan-wook’s strange Cannes prize-winning thriller, a husband is discovered mangled beneath a mountain, and pretty widow Seo-rae (Tang Wei) isn’t noticeably upset.

Crossfire, BBC One review - pacy and nail-biting, the holiday from hell

★★ CROSSFIRE, BBC ONE Keeley Hawes gets caught up in a tense but heartless thriller

Keeley Hawes gets caught up in a tense but heartless thriller

A sun-baked island resort; Keeley Hawes taking a leisurely dip in an infinity pool as we hear her in voiceover musing on how events happen unchosen, with you in them; then we are up in her room, where she is texting somebody. The sounds of gunshots and mass panic jolt her into action. She rushes for her trainers – not flipflops, she admonishes herself, you are going to need to run.

The Capture, Series 2 finale, BBC One review - gripping ride to a barnstorming conclusion

★★★★ THE CAPTURE, SERIES 2 FINALE, BBC ONE Gripping ride to a barnstorming conclusion

But could the AI drama have been more chilling if less intent on being thrilling?

[Here be spoilers.] If you have been glued to the second season of The Capture, just ended, does it bother you that its content is borderline science fiction? Probably not. Writer Ben Chanan’s depiction of artificial intelligence may outstrip the reality of what it can currently achieve, but he can sure spin a gripping TV series around AI's potential for creating chaos in the wrong hands. 

Munich Games, Sky Atlantic review - superbly crafted thriller races to prevent a terrorist attack

★★★★ MUNICH GAMES, SKY ATLANTIC Superbly crafted thriller races to prevent terrorist attack

'Fauda' writer Michal Aviram delivers the set pieces alongside subtler detective discord

A black box with a red blinking light is being stashed in a cabinet under the seating of the Olympic stadium in Munich. Then a hoodie-ed man is seen in silhouette, the stadium in the background. We are about to be plunged into the darker corners of the prosperous Bavarian city where, 50 years earlier, as the footage in the opening credits recalls, the infamous massacre of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team by PLO gunmen took place.

The Gray Man, Netflix review - the Russo brothers explore big-bang theory

★★★ THE GRAY MAN, NETFLIX Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans in cacophonous spy romp

Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans enjoy themselves in cacophonous spy romp

Directed by the fraternal duo Anthony and Joseph Russo, who have helmed several of the colossally successful Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, The Gray Man ought at least to be entertaining and stuffed with blockbusterish thrills.

The Control Room, BBC One review - twisty thriller set in an ultra-noir Glasgow

★★★ THE CONTROL ROOM, BBC ONE Twisty thriller set in an ultra-noir Glasgow

A mysterious woman caller turns an ambulance dispatcher's life inside out

The BBC publicity department doesn’t want reviewers to reveal too much about this three-parter in advance, so the description of its content here may seem skimpy. If you watch this mini-series, you will sort of understand why – its plot relies on coincidences (or are they?) and unexpected twists (or just implausible ones?), flashbacks to past traumas (are these reliable?) and nightmarish scenes (real or imagined?)

Blu-ray: Pickpocket

★★★ BLU-RAY: PICKPOCKET Robert Bresson's 1959 classic is marred by excess of rigour

Robert Bresson's 1959 classic is marred by excess of rigour

Pickpocket regularly makes it into the list of best films of all times. It is a film-maker’s film, more of an essay on the art of cinema and a discourse on crime than a thriller. Much French art house cinema is characterised by serious intent and intellectual rigour, and Bresson may be, more than any other auteur, the pioneer of a cinema in which reflection and thought play as much of a part as the display of narrative or emotional excitement.

Death on the Nile review - Kenneth Branagh flounders again as Poirot

★★★ DEATH ON THE NILE Kenneth Branagh flounders again as Poirot

The director's second helping of Agatha Christie does not thrill

Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh's second visit to Agatha Christie's oeuvre, was supposed to be released in November 2020 but Covid, a studio sale and some embarrassing revelations about one of its cast members put paid to that. Was it worth the wait? Not really.

Munich: The Edge of War review - Jeremy Irons excels in a revisionist portrait of Neville Chamberlain

Persuasive screen treatment of Robert Harris's historical novel

The name of Neville Chamberlain and the term “appeasement” have become indelibly linked, thanks to his efforts to accommodate Adolf Hitler’s bellicose ambitions in the run-up to what became World War Two.