gripping

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER admitted his torrid Ryder Cup was “one of the lowest moments of my career”.

The dominant world No1 arrived at Bethpage expected to lead the USA team by example.

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But in harrowingly similar fashion to his 9&7 defeat with Brooks Koepka to Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland, he started Friday morning with a crushing 5&3 foursomes loss alongside Russell Henley to Aberg and Matt Fitzpatrick.

And Scheffler, 29, became the first American to go 0-4 in the first four sessions in Ryder Cup history.

The reigning PGA Championship and Open champion, though, did beat Rory McIlroy in the singles to ensure he did not leave New York pointless.

Scheffler said: “I think it’s hard to put into words how much it hurt to lose all four matches. This week did not go how I anticipated it going for myself and I’m a little bit bummed.

“To have the trust of my captains and team-mates to go out there and play all four matches and lose all four, it’s really hard to put into words how much that stings and hurts.

“It was probably one of the lowest moments of my career, but it turned out to be one of the most special, just because I’ve got great friends in this room and I was really proud to be battling with these guys for three days.”

McIlroy and Scheffler spoke to each other on the course about their mental, physical and emotional exhaustion as both men played in all five sessions.

McIlroy said he was “running on empty” and described their match as a “pillow fight”.

Scheffler added: “Things just did not work out the way I anticipated, it was a difficult week for me personally but I was proud to be able to get a point.

“It’s tough, playing all five matches is a grind. I’m pretty tired.”

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RYDER CUP 2025 LIVE: FOLLOW ALL THE LATEST FROM BETHPAGE BLACK

The BBC’s new true crime series Cracking the Case delves into the minds of criminals and the evidence that led to their conviction

For all you true crime series fans the BBC’s latest offering, Cracking the Case, should be immediately bumped to the top of your must-watch list.

Cracking the Case features BBC News journalist Calum Leslie, who is delving into the ‘how and why’ behind some major crimes, with the assistance of two experts.

This riveting three-part series will captivate anyone intrigued by the workings of the criminal mind. In each episode, Calum and the experts aim to comprehend why different crimes were committed by exploring psychological insights. They’ll also probe police procedures, examining what justice signifies for every victim and their families.

Calum is backed by two criminal specialists, both with a wealth of experience in solving past cases. Rebecca Mason, a former police detective, will lend her 14 years of expertise in the force to provide valuable insight, reports the Express.

Rebecca is no novice when it comes to bringing criminals to justice, having secured the UK’s first ever romance fraud conviction. Her diligent work on the case was recognised by the presiding judge.

Dr Sohom Das, the second expert on the show, has a background as a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness. He has previously aided both victims and criminals during ongoing court proceedings, presenting his expert opinion to the courts.

His position in the courtroom environment has demanded considerable courage, with Dr Sohom having previously encountered some perilous offenders and observed the distressing accounts from victims who have been severely affected by their offences.

The official description states: “Every crime leaves a trail. Fingerprints, DNA, a move caught on camera. BBC News journalist Calum Leslie is joined by two experts – one who investigates how crimes are committed and one who digs into why.

“The team examines the evidence that led to convictions and put some of the UK’s most notorious criminals behind bars. Gaining access to information that usually remains sealed, Cracking the Case gives professional insights into the psychological profile behind the criminal act and walks the audience through how the perpetrators were caught.”

The overview continues: “At the heart of each episode lies a thorough exploration of the impact crime has on victims and their families – giving a voice to the people most profoundly impacted by terrible events by hearing directly from them.”

BBC Commissioning Editor Chris Achilleos further shared: “This new format from the BBC News Video on Demand team takes a serious look into how crimes, that have hit the headlines, have been solved.

“Using studio-based storytelling, with detailed graphic explainers, police interviews and evidence as well as compelling testimony from those impacted – we will take audiences through the process of how crimes are solved, step by step.”

The programme’s presenter, Calum Leslie also added: “BBC News is the home of trusted, impartial journalism and the work of our newsgathering teams across the country is what provides the journalistic rigour behind this series.

“We are there in court, hearing the evidence and witness testimony. We are with the people affected by these crimes, broadcasting their stories. Cracking the Case uses all of these resources to reveal how investigations take shape and the profound impact these crimes have on victims and communities.”

All three episodes will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer on 1 September.

Reach Screen Time spoke exclusively to Mudtown stars Tom Cullen and Erin Richards

A gripping new TV drama is set to hit our screens this month, promising viewers a captivating tale brimming with tension and conflict, reports Wales Online. This comes as audiences are binging another crime drama.

Mudtown, set in Newport, Wales, centres around magistrate Claire Lewis Jones (portrayed by Erin Richards), who finds herself in a dilemma when her childhood friend’s daughter is accused of arson.

Claire’s personal and professional worlds collide as she attempts to preside over the case. Adding to the complexity, her ex-lover and local gangster Saint Pete (Tom Cullen) re-enters her life, seeking her assistance in court.

She finds herself torn between divided loyalties and ensuring justice is served.

Mudtown was co-created by Keeping Faith actor and writer Hannah Daniels along with real-life magistrate Georgia Lee.

In an exclusive chat with Reach Screen Time, lead stars Cullen and Richards shared their thoughts on joining the series.

READ MORE: ‘Fantastic’ crime drama fans say will ‘tear your heart out’ is streaming for freeREAD MORE: New crime drama branded ‘exceptional’ now available to stream for free

Cullen confessed he’d been extremely hesitant about accepting the role of crime boss Saint Pete, despite having portrayed real-life gangster Johnny Palmer in BBC’s The Gold.

He revealed: “On a personal level, Pete is a character that I’ve never really got to play before and when they offered it to me, I was absolutely terrified and confused as to why they wanted me to play this character.

“And I was absolutely terrified of the prospect of playing because I thought it was way beyond my reach, capabilities as an actor and for that reason, also, I decided to do it, to scare myself.”

Explaining his decision to join Mudtown, Cullen said: “Lots attracted me to the show. Just on a script-level, I found it really interesting.

“I thought that its themes really resonated with me and the socio-political aspect to it about the choices we make and what choices do we have when we grow up in certain areas, and the different paths a certain decision can make, I found that really interesting. I also thought that the characters were so complex.”

He revealed he was also attracted to the project due to the opportunity to work in his native Wales, which he rarely got to do and “work with friends” he’d “known for years”, describing it as a “joyous experience”.

The Crown and Gotham star Richards confessed she had similar motivations for joining Mudtown, admitting she was also drawn to the chance to work in Wales and be near her family.

“It was such a dream and it was the first job I did since having my son, who is now two-and-a-half, but was one, and just the ability to come home every night and see him and sleep in my own bed, and travel to Newport which is somewhere I’ve never been before but obviously visited a lot,” she said.

Richards and Cullen have been friends for years after starring in a film together when they were just 16, which she confessed boosted their on-screen spark and transformed her acting.

The actress revealed: “I had a specific idea of who Claire was and I was playing her a certain way, and then when I would do the scenes with Tom, she would like change a little bit and I didn’t plan for that to happen.

“But I think just because of the history that Tom and I have and how much we know about each other, it really reflected how Claire and Saint Pete were together. It was a really dynamic we had as friends but also had as characters.”

The programme was filmed back-to-back in English and Welsh, like numerous Welsh productions including the aforementioned Keeping Faith and The Light in the Hall.

Recording simultaneously in both languages meant the Welsh-speaking actors would begin in one tongue for a scene and then switch to the other language for the following scene depending on the take.

Richards confessed: “It was a real mind-bending thing at the beginning, but then halfway through I got used to it and my brain would just do it and click into place.”

The performer got ready for the part by observing magistrates courts in both Cardiff and Newport, discovering how it operated and acknowledged she was “surprised” that more programmes about the court hadn’t been created. Addressing the possibility of a second season, Richards teased: “I think the final episode, the final scene leaves it open to another series. I would love to do one. Cullen added: “I’d love to do one. We’ll see how it goes, fingers crossed.”

Mudtown is available on U&alibi from August 29 at 9pm, available on Sky, Virgin Media and NOW

Charlie English begins “The CIA Book Club” by describing a 1970s technical manual: a dull cover, as uninviting as anything. A book that practically begs you to put it back on the shelf and move on.

Which was exactly the point. Secreted inside the technobabble dust jacket was a Polish-language copy of George Orwell’s “1984,” the boring cover a deliberate misdirection to deter prying eyes. The false front is a bit of skullduggery that harks back to a world where conspiracy to escape detection was a part of everyday life. A world where literature could be revolutionary, “a reservoir of freedom.”

English, formerly a journalist for the Guardian, specializes in writing about how art and literature are used to fight extremism: “The Storied City,” published in the U.K. as “The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu,” spotlights librarians who heroically saved priceless manuscripts of West African history from al Qaeda; “The Gallery of Miracles and Madness” traces the “insane” artists who influenced the early 20th century Modernism movement and Hitler’s attempts to stamp out their art — and them. His new book takes us through five decades of Poles fighting Soviet domination and Communist propaganda with a potent weapon: literature.

Even from the vantage point of the 21st century, when we know what became of the USSR, English’s book reads like a thriller. There are CIA suits, secret police, faceless bureaucrats and backstabbing traitors lurking in these pages. We face tensions between paramilitary cowboys and prudent intellectuals, between paper-pushing accountants and survivors saving a culture. While reading, I worried about figures like Helena Łuczywo, who edited and published an underground newspaper, and Mirosław Chojecki, who smuggled books and printing supplies into Poland. As with the best spy novels, we know the good guy is going to win while reading “The CIA Book Club,” but how English gets us there is exciting.

His best chapters follow the protests in the Gdańsk shipyards that led to the Solidarity trade union. A better future shimmers on the page when Lech Wałęsa climbs over a fence as an unemployed electrician, taps someone on the shoulder and becomes “the face of the Polish revolution.” (Ten years later, he became president of Poland, too.) In the violent crackdown that followed the momentary blossoming of freedom after Gdańsk, we feel the heartbreak and fear of the people. We hope again when fighters like Łuczywo begin printing a scant newsletter whose “main job was just to exist” and remind people they weren’t alone.

The book is gripping, but it doesn’t quite deliver on its subtitled promise to “win the Cold War with forbidden literature.” The story English has researched and put together focuses almost entirely on Poland’s fight for freedom from the USSR. Of course, the CIA’s funding of smuggling illicit literature into the Eastern Bloc is an important story, and a nearly forgotten one. As English mentions in the epilogue, while “the book program’s latter-day budget stood at around $2 million to $4 million annually, [the Afghan operation] by 1987 was running at a cost of $700 million a year, taking up 80 percent of the overseas budget of the clandestine service.” Apparently, an operation costing nearly 200 times the other deserves nearly 200 times the credit as well. The result is that the power of inexpensive books was swept under the rug in favor of expensive shows of force.

Still, the impressive power of the book club might have been better elucidated if details about its impact in other Eastern Bloc countries were brought into the story. The focus on Poland obscures what was happening in the USSR. English focused on Poland because the country had a long history of underground revolutionary culture; when the USSR turned independent Poland into a client state known as the People’s Republic of Poland, the Poles already knew how to go underground to fight back. The lifestyle doublespeak people used to survive under successive dictatorships in Eastern Europe came a little more easily to Poles, who had practiced it before. When the CIA offered funding, they were ready. Still, it would have been nice to see how “1984” inspired people in Ukraine or Moldova or Kyrgyzstan. If books are an answer to dictatorships — and as strong as “an organization packed with spooks and paramilitaries who fought in warzones” — it would be inspiring to see more of that. Hopefully a sequel is in the planning stages.

What this book does incredibly well is document an oral history of Polish resistance that has, until now, only been told in bits and pieces. There is archival research in here, but it is in the nature of dictatorships to destroy evidence of their crimes. Fortunately, English talked to many of the people who were there, publishing underground newspapers and smuggling in illicit literature. What information has been declassified — and much of it hasn’t been — bolsters the memories of survivors.

One of the most interesting details of “Book Club” is not that books inspired a nation but which books did. Philosophical tracts and political satires were smuggled in, of course; Poland received its share of “Animal Farm” and “1984” and “Brave New World.” But just as important to the Poles living under Soviet dictatorship were art books, fashion magazines, religious texts, lighthearted novels and regular newspapers. More influential than anti-Communist diatribes were the reminders that there was a world outside Soviet propaganda; each book read was a bid to avoid brainwashing, to not become a tool of the state.

This literary history is a prescient one. As book bans increase around the United States and peaceful protests are met with state violence here in Los Angeles, a tale of when stories saved the day is inherently hopeful. This book is a reminder that words are powerful and that stories matter. Sometimes the most rebellious thing one can do is read a book.

Castellanos Clark, a writer and historian in Los Angeles, is the author of “Unruly Figures: Twenty Tales of Rebels, Rulebreakers, and Revolutionaries You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of.”

TV Columnist Sara Wallis reviews Squid Game 3, as TV’s most stressful show returns to Netflix today for its third and final season…

*Warning: Some plot reveals, no major spoilers*

Surely the most stressful TV experience of all time, dystopian horror-show Squid Game is back today for its third and final flourish – and you won’t want to miss it. The South Korean mega hit, which will send your blood pressure soaring within minutes, somehow manages to become even more messed up and sinister than before. Millions of viewers across the globe have been hooked by the plot so far, which sees desperate, broke ‘losers’ compete in a series of children’s games for quick cash. What they don’t realise until it’s too late is that there’s a violent twist. Win these menacing games, win millions. Lose and get shot in the head by a soldier in a mask and red jumpsuit. The fewer players left, the more money for each one. As you can imagine, they all become completely unhinged and begin to turn on each other. It’s thrilling, popcorn-eating TV.

After season one became a cultural phenomenon, Director Hwang Dong-Hyuk admitted he was stressed out (his teeth fell out) as he faced the difficult Second Album Syndrome, with expectations through the roof. Three years later, season two saw our anti-hero Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), aka winning Player 456, re-enter the game with the intention of bringing down the bad guys.

By the end he was leading a rebellion, hoping to take them down from within. But the evil Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) always seemed to be one step ahead. It ended on a brutal cliffhanger, with Gi-hun witnessing the death of his friend at the hands of the Front Man, who was disguised as Player 001.

We’ve only had to wait six months this time for these final six, nail-biting episodes. Picking up exactly where we left off, the first episode is titled Keys and Knives, which sets us up for the first new game. It’s hide and seek, but no one’s laughing. Some players get keys, some get knives, you can guess the rest. As ever, the gigantic set-pieces, made to make the players feel small like children, are visually stunning and creative. The stage is set, classical music blares out, shrill voices sing-song the instructions, and we watch as the players try to outrun death at every turn.

This season gives the actual games more airtime, meaning the edge-of-seat moments are longer, making everything more disturbing. Episode two, The Starry Night, is entirely one game played out, where bonds are tested, dynamics shift and you can expect plenty of shock-horror moments. Next another frantic childhood game results in a bloodbath, before ultimately the remaining players reach the grand finale, called Sky Squid Game.

Watching the whole thing on screens are the VIPs, a group of wealthy, masked foreigners (American and British accents among them), who all place bets, moving little numbered chess pieces, while smoking and drinking. Though this part is no doubt supposed to be a caricature of a corrupt society, it’s all so cartoony with terrible acting that it jars with the excellence of the main scenes.

If you can get over groaning at these hammed-up villains, you will at least appreciate the social commentary on class, capitalism and immorality. While they enjoy this gladiator-style bloodsport as entertainment, as the players themselves become more deranged by greed, it holds up a mirror to the worst of humanity. By the time we reach the final episode, titled Humans Are…, we have also become numb to the violence. Seasons two and three could never have quite the same impact as season one. However, with the new games designed to cause even more division among the players than before, and a callous, unguessable twist early on that changes the whole dynamic, Squid Game becomes monstrous in a different way.

Watch out for drama outside of the main arena, as police officer Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) mounts a desperate search for the island, knowing his brother is the Front Man. What he doesn’t realise is that his plan is being sabotaged from within. Organs are still being harvested, and one soldier defects and tries to escape, while there are plenty of players, such as a mother and son and pregnant girl, to get emotionally attached to – and plenty to hate. Some of the side plots feel a bit muddled and some player hallucinations are confusing, but for the central characters there is a lot of heart to be found amid the trauma. Ignoring rumours of spin-offs and more seasons (and a glorious final wink), it feels right to end this show now. Squid Game has been an brilliant television hammer-blow, but surely no one has the stomach for more…

*Squid Game 3 is now streaming on Netflix

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Leo Frank, the superintendent of a pencil factory in Georgia, was accused of murdering a young employee, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. His 1913 trial led to his conviction despite shoddy evidence and the manipulations of an ambitious prosecuting attorney, who shamelessly preyed on the prejudices of the jury.

After a series of failed appeals, Frank’s sentence was commuted by the governor, but he was kidnapped and lynched by a mob enraged that his death sentence wasn’t being imposed. The story garnered national attention and threw a spotlight on the fault lines of our criminal justice system.

This dark chapter in American history might not seem suitable for musical treatment. Docudrama would be the safer way to go, given the gravity of the material. But playwright Alfred Uhry and composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown had a vision of what they could uniquely bring to the retelling of Frank’s story.

Olivia Goosman, from left, Jack Roden and the national touring company of “Parade.”

(Joan Marcus)

Their 1998 musical was a critical hit but a difficult sell. More admired than beloved, the show has extended an open challenge to theater artists drawn to the sophisticated majesty of Brown’s Tony-winning score but daunted by the expansive scope of Uhry’s Tony-winning book.

Director Michael Arden has answered the call in his Tony-winning revival, which has arrived at the Ahmanson Theatre in sharp form. The production, which launched at New York City Center before transferring to Broadway, proved that a succès d’estime could also be an emotionally stirring hit.

“Parade” covers a lot of cultural, historical, and political ground. The trial, prefaced by a Civil War snapshot that sets the action in the proper context, takes up much of the first act. But the musical also tells the story of a marriage that grows in depth as external reality becomes more treacherous.

It’s a lot to sort through, but Arden, working hand in hand with scenic designer Dane Laffrey, has conceptualized the staging in a neo-Brechtian fashion that allows the historical background to be seamlessly transmitted. Sven Ortel‘s projections smoothly integrate the necessary information, allowing the focus to be on the human figures caught in the snares of American bigotry and barbarism.

Danielle Lee Greaves, left, and Talia Suskauer in the national tour of “Parade.” Suskauer plays Lucille, Leo’s wife.

(Joan Marcus)

The 2007 Donmar Warehouse revival, directed by Rob Ashford, came to the Mark Taper Forum in 2009 with the promise that it had finally figured out the musical. The production was scaled down, but the full potency of “Parade” wasn’t released. An earnest layer of “importance” clouded the audience’s emotional connection to the characters, even if the Taper was a more hospitable space for this dramatic musical than the Ahmanson.

Arden’s production, at once intimate and epic, comes through beautifully nonetheless on the larger stage. “Parade,” which delves into antisemitism, systemic bias in our judicial system and the power of a wily demagogue to stoke atavistic hatred for self-gain, has a disconcerting timeliness. But the production — momentous in its subject matter, human in its theatrical style — lets the contemporary parallels speak for themselves.

Ben Platt, who played Leo, and Micaela Diamond, who played Leo’s wife, Lucille, made this Broadway revival sing in the most personally textured terms. For the tour, these roles are taken over by Max Chernin and Talia Suskauer. Both are excellent, if less radiantly idiosyncratic. The modesty of their portrayals, however, subtly draws us in.

Chris Shyer, left, and Alison Ewing play Governor Slaton and his wife, two of the more noble figures in the show.

(Joan Marcus)

Chernin’s Leo is a cerebral, Ivy League-educated New Yorker lost in the minutiae of his factory responsibilities. A numbers man more than a people person, he’s a fish out of water in Atlanta, as he spells out in the song “How Can I Call This Home?” Platt played up the comedy of the quintessential Jewish outsider in a land of Confederate memorials and drawling manners. Chernin, more reserved in his manner, seethes with futile terror.

The withholding nature of Chernin’s Leo poses some theatrical risks but goes a long way toward explaining how the character’s otherness could be turned against him in such a malignant way. His Leo makes little effort to fit in, and he’s resented all the more for his lofty detachment.

It takes some time for Suskauer’s Lucille to come into her own, both as a wife and a theatrical character. It isn’t until the second half that, confronting the imminent death of her husband, she asserts herself and rises in stature in both Leo’s eyes and audience’s. But a glimmer of this potential comes out in the first act when Lucille sings with plaintive conviction “You Don’t Know This Man,” one of the standout numbers in a score distinguished less by individual tunes than by the ingenious deployment of an array of musical styles (from military beats to folk ballads and from hymns to jazz) to tell the story from different points of view.

Max Chernin’s Leo is a cerebral, Ivy League-educated New Yorker lost in the minutiae of his factory responsibilities.

(Joan Marcus)

“This Is Not Over Yet” raises hope that Leo and Lucille will find a way to overcome the injustice that has engulfed them. History can’t be revised, but where there’s a song there’s always a chance in the theater. Reality, however, painfully darkens in the poignant duet “All the Wasted Time,” which Lucille and Leo sing from his prison cell — a seized moment of marital bliss from a husband and wife who, as the last hour approaches, have finally become equal partners.

Ramone Nelson, who plays Jim Conley, a Black worker at the factory who is suborned to testify against Leo, delivers the rousing “Blues: Feel The Rain Fall,” a chain gang number that electrifies the house despite the defiance of a man who, having known little justice, has no interest in defending it. Conley has been sought out by Governor Slaton (a gently authoritative Chris Shyer), who has reopened the investigation at Lucille’s urging only to uncover contradictions and inconsistencies in the case. He’s one of the more noble figures, however reluctant, married to a woman (a vivid Alison Ewing) who won’t let him betray his integrity, even if it’s too little, too late.

Hugh Dorsey (Andrew Samonsky), the prosecuting attorney preoccupied with his future, has no regrets after railroading Leo in a politicized trial that will cost him his life. Dorsey is one of the chief villains of the musical, but Samonsky resists melodrama to find a credible psychological throughline for a man who has staked his career on the ends justifying the means.

Lucille (Talia Suskauer, left) and Leo (Max Chernin) sing a poignant duet from his prison cell.

(Joan Marcus)

Britt Craig (Michael Tacconi), a down-on-his-luck reporter who takes delight in demonizing Leo in the press, dances on his desk when he’s landed another slanderous scoop. But even he’s more pathetic than hateful. One sign of the production’s Brechtian nature is the way the structural forces at work in society are revealed to be more culpable than any individual character. The press, like the government and the judiciary, is part of a system that’s poisoned from within.

The harking back to the Civil War isn’t in vain. “Parade” understands that America’s original sin — slavery and the economic apparatus that sanctioned the dehumanization of groups deemed as “other” — can’t be divorced from Leo’s story.

The musical never loses sight of poor Mary Phagan (Olivia Goosman), a flighty underage girl who didn’t deserve to be savagely killed at work. It’s exceedingly unlikely that Leo had anything to do with her murder, but the show doesn’t efface her tragedy, even as it reckons with the gravity of Leo’s.

When Chernin’s Leo raises his voice in Jewish prayer before he is hanged, the memory of a man whose life was wantonly destroyed is momentarily restored. His lynching can’t be undone, but the dignity of his name can be redeemed and our collective sins can be called to account in a gripping musical that hasn’t so much been revived as reborn.

Diane Kruger and Jo Joyner head up a stellar cast in this new psychological thriller now on Paramount+

You know those smug, perfect mums? How well do you really know them? What if they’re not that perfect after all? Little Disasters, airing today (Thursday 22 May) on Paramount+, is a deliciously gripping psychological thriller. Based on the novel by Sarah Vaughan, it follows a group of four women whose friendship implodes.

When Jess (Diane Kruger) takes her baby to hospital with an unexplained head injury, her close friend and on-duty A&E doctor Liz (Jo Joyner) must make the excruciating decision of whether to call social services.

It starts with Jess taking her screaming baby to hospital. It’s A&E on a Friday night and only Liz is available to check baby Betsy. When Liz finds a significant bump on Betsy’s head, she asks Jess what happened – but Jess is sketchy on the details. “She slipped,” she says. Turns out the 10-month-old has a skull fracture and significant bruising. The action flashes back to when she and Jess met 11 years ago at a class for expectant mums, along with two other women.

Exploring themes of motherhood and friendship, the series looks at what happens to this group of women after Liz sets off a catastrophic chain of events. Liz says: “I always thought that Jess was the perfect mother, but then something happens, some little disaster and suddenly you ask yourself, what else is she hiding?” Also starring Shelley Conn, Emily Taaffe, Stephen Campbell Moore, Ben Bailey Smith, Patrick Baladi, Robert Gilbert, Chizzy Akudolu and JJ Feild, this thriller will have you questioning everything. All six episodes are now available to binge.

*Little Disasters is airing now on Paramount+

There’s plenty more on TV tonight – here’s the best of the rest..

THE HORNE SECTION TV SHOW, CHANNEL 4, 10pm

Riotous, wacky, sublimely silly, this sitcom revels in taking a swipe at popular culture and definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously. Written by and starring Alex Horne, with an appearance from his real life wife Rachel, playing his wife (who else!), this is a second run for the quirky comedy.

Struggling with his newfound fame, the pressures of filming live from his family home, and a subsequent lack of money, Alex is determined to prove to the nation that he’s a credible leader of his band, while trying not to be overshadowed by the real musicians he works with.

It starts with an unsuccessful appearance on Sunday Brunch, during which Alex is irritated by the presence of ‘proper musician’, James Corden’s band leader Reggie Watts. Producer Thora (Desiree Burch) then books Reggie as a guest on The Horne Section TV Show, while C4 exec Ash (Georgia Tennant) commissions talent contest, World’s Strongest Musician, which gives Alex a chance to prove himself. Or not.

NINE PERFECT STRANGERS, PRIME VIDEO

Nicole Kidman returns as the creepy, mysterious wellness guru Masha, who has invited nine new strangers to a transformational retreat in the Austrian Alps. With her ageless face, white blonde hair and bewitching eyes, Nicole is made for this role and this is another thrill-ride of a series.

The nine people have been chosen under bizarre circumstances for a healing retreat – they think they’re heading off to a spa, but they are connected in ways they could never imagine. Over the course of a week, Masha takes them to the brink. She says: “I invited you all here because sometimes you shouldn’t deal with pain gently.”

The first series included vials of blood and digging your own grave, so we know that something sinister is definitely going on. An excellent cast includes Henry Golding, Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, Lucas Englander, Murray Bartlett, Mark Strong and Aras Aydin. “You have to trust me,” says Masha. They definitely shouldn’t…

EMMERDALE, ITV1, 7.30pm

With Mack being ostracised by sister Moira and mortified over his actions, he backs out of being Aaron’s best man. Belle tells Sam that Nate never arrived at his job in the Shetlands. Suspicious, Belle vows to get to the bottom of his sudden disappearance. John pushes a flashback of Nate’s dead body out of his mind and focuses on relaxing. Sarah slips away to her hospital appointment alone where she’s forced to face her potential cancer diagnosis.

EASTENDERS, BBC1, 7.30pm

Stacey leaves the house for the first time in weeks. However, Kat is concerned when Stacey invites them for a big family meal, fearing that she’s trying to do too much too soon.

Everything comes crashing down later when Stacey realises that her coat and mobile phone have accidentally fallen into the laundry bag and Freddie has taken everything to be washed. The phone contains voicemails, photos and texts from Martin and if the phone is damaged, they will be lost forever.

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