DVD/Blu-ray: County Lines
An insider's angle on the impact of Britain's biggest drugs problem
The website of the National Crime Agency offers the following definition of County Lines: “[it is] where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries (although not exclusively), usually by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by gangs.
Sound of Metal review - hidden depths behind the decibels
Absorbing story of hard choices and self-knowledge
I once went to see Motorhead, back in the days when real men didn’t wear earplugs, and afterwards it was if somebody had completely sawn off the top half of my hearing register. Weird and scary, and the band were putting themselves through that every night.
Edward St Aubyn: Double Blind review - constructing 'cognition literature'
Psychoanalysis meets fiction in this original study of human emotion
If it weren’t for the warning on the blurb, the first chapter of Double Blind would have you wondering whether you’d ordered something from the science section by mistake. It's a novel that throws its reader in at the deep end, where that end is made of "streaks of bacteria" and "vigorous mycorrhizal networks" that would take a biology degree (or a browser) to decipher.
ZeroZeroZero, Sky Atlantic review - how drug money makes the world go round
Lavish and violent multinational drama from the makers of 'Gomorrah'
Based on a book by Roberto Saviano, author of the Neapolitan gang saga Gomorrah, ZeroZeroZero (Sky Atlantic) is an account of the international drugs trade and the way its tentacles wrap themselves around the entrails of societies at all levels.
GHBoy, Charing Cross Theatre review - drugs and sex but no rock 'n' roll
Paul Harvard's ambitious debut play needs further focus
A 35-year-old gay man has to figure out which way to turn in GHBoy, the Paul Harvard play whose connection to the chemsex world is embedded in its title.
County Lines review - a scary descent into drug-dealer purgatory
How criminal gangs lure vulnerable children into their distribution rackets
This debut feature by writer/director Henry Blake is a shocking and remarkably assured drama about the “county lines” trade, where children are used as drug traffickers. Using mobile phones, city-based drug dealers employ kids to ferry their product to rural areas or small towns, in this case Canvey Island and the Thames estuary.
Project Power - so-so attempt to reinvent the superhero genre
Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star alongside Dominique Fishback in fun thriller set in New Orleans
What if there was a pill you could pop that gave you superpowers? The only catch is that, while it might make you invisible or bullet-proof, it might also boil your brain or make you explode with just one hit.
Glastonbury Festival 2020: Beyoncé, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., marijuana and time travel
With Glastonbury halted, our intrepid reporter attempts to recreate it, while dreaming of the 1990 Festival
Coronavirus blah blah blah. Glastonbury cancelled. What to do? Didn’t go to the 2010 festival for reasons too tedious to go into. Suffered the worst FOMO of my life. This is different. There is no Glastonbury. But sitting around at home… we’ve all been doing that for months…
Have a Good Trip, Netflix review - a breezy journey into the mind
Netflix doc focuses on the lighter side of psychedelics
Don’t do drugs, kids. For the past 50 years, that’s been the consistent message. But how much of what we know about psychedelics is just fearmongering? Do you really want to jump out of a window? Will you permanently lose your mind?