The Good Mothers; A Very British Cult; Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now; Race Across The World

“I’m not normally a big fan of mafia-based dramas but, oh my … The Good Mothers is a revelation: cleverly written, beautifully shot and brilliantly acted. It is based on the true story of the brave women trapped within the brutal, abusive prison of the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta and how they helped to bring it down from within; the authorities’ “Trojan horse”. It is adapted from Alex Perry’s 2018 book of the same name (subtitled: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s Most Powerful Mafia) and builds the sense of menace and suspense unbearably well.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Its six compelling episodes, based on the real stories of four women who found the courage to testify against their families, are a welcome corrective to the genre’s norms. The men are unreconstructed villains who control, imprison and beat their wives and daughters. Doubtless they’re good fun to play – Francesco Colella chills the blood as the head of the Cosco clan. But they are the supporting players.”
Jasper Rees, Telegraph

“You might hope – briefly, and only if you hadn’t been paying attention to the world – that a programme called A Very British Cult was a sitcom, set in the suburbs, based around a sect designed as a cover for a deeply unattractive man to have sex with other people’s wives in a cul-de-sac. But alas, as is so often the case with optimistic interpretations, you would be wrong. A Very British Cult is a careful, delicate, remorseless investigation and anatomisation of the real suffering seemingly caused by an organisation known as Lighthouse.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“One of the most baffling aspects of the Lighthouse “life coaching” organisation, accused by its victims of being a bullying cult, was its figurehead, Paul Waugh. I thought cult leaders were typically charismatic and eloquent, magnetic personalities who hypnotise vulnerable people with their golden oratory. Apparently not. As Catrin Nye’s excellent documentary A Very British Cult showed, Waugh had all the charm and eloquence of a bus stop drunk.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“This film is not so much warts and all as twitches, farts, curses and everything else. Are you ready for a pop star picking up underpants from his bedroom floor, giving them a quick sniff and cheerfully announcing “I think they’re clean?” Put it this way: a Beyoncé-style hagiography it is not.”
Neil McCormick, Telegraph

“Making such a documentary has, perhaps uncoincidentally, become a key part of pop stars’ authenticity shtick. It turns out that for each opportunity social media gives celebrities to be “real”, there are five to be fake – so fans need more information, more backstory, more unfiltered behind-the-scenes footage. But where Taylor Swift in her own Netflix film was Miss Americana, an authentic superstar princess channelling the spirit of an entire nation, Capaldi is Mr Whitburnium, a slightly bewildered lad whose every other word is “f***” and who might pop into the local chippy to say hello.”
Emily Bootle, The i

“Despite efforts in the edit to build suspense, the race itself doesn’t matter much. We learn a little about each of the couples, but not enough to leave us anxious to see one duo triumph over the rest to claim the £20,000 prize for finishing first. What’s far more important is this big country, and the big-hearted people who live there.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail