THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB There's always a certain theatricality to movies or TV shows about sleuths. Whether it's the adventures of Hercule Poirot or Jessica Fletcher , Benoit Blanc or Charlie Cale , audiences often have to wade through well known actors delivering very wordy scripts as their characters fall under suspicion for a dastardly crime. As many shows and films have discovered, there's a huge risk in these talkfests of the cast overacting and the direction becoming bland and stale. Netflix's 'The Thursday Murder Club' takes this challenge on, having built up quite an audiencewith a successful series of books. Set in a retirement home where four amateur sleuths meet up and solve crimes while also indulging other interests like baking, knitting and yoga, British TV presenter Richard Osman's series has spawned five books and had huge commercial and critical success. The books have topped best seller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, wi...
HOSTAGE Channel 5 must be ripping. Usually the UK's fifth terrestrial channel corners the market in ropey thrillers. Yet here's a UK political drama on Netflix that churns out frankly unbelievable plotlines and dreadful dialogue. Written and created by Matt Charman - an Oscar nominated screenwriter no less for his work on Steven Spielberg's ' Bridge of Spies ' - 'Hostage' casts Suranne Jones as a Labour-ish British Prime Minister and Julie Delpy as a conservative French President. Jones' Oldham MP who has risen to the top job, Abigail Dalton is losing her way in the polls, thanks to tight budgets, a National Health Service drugs crisis and problems with immigration. Meeting Delpy's President Vivienne Toussaint, who is preparing to seek re-election, it doesn't help that Abigail was caught off mic calling the French leader a handmaiden to the far right. At a summit in Downing Street, they attempt to patch things up with a deal on immigration and ...