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  TONY If you were to ask me to name my ten favourite books, one of the first I'd mention is Anthony Bourdain's memoir 'Kitchen Confidential'. I first read it while holidaying in southern Spain in 2003 and was immediately seduced by its passion, its vivacity, its directness and especially by Bourdain's Hemingway style prose. The book read like a Martin Scorsese movie waiting to be made. Instead, it was optioned by Fox as a single camera sitcom with Bradley Cooper and Frank Langella in 2005 that spectacularly crashed and burned when it was axed after four episodes. Despite this, the book's influence has lingered. Its DNA can be detected in John Wells' ropey movie ' Burnt ,' in the excellent Hulu and Disney+ culinary drama ' The Bear ' and the equally impressive big and small screen versions of its British equivalent ' Boiling Point '. Now Matt Johnson has taken the first two chapters of 'Kitchen Confidential' and turned them...

    TIP TOE Two of the most eagerly anticipated British TV shows this year have dealt with toxic masculinity. The most recent is Russell T Davies' Channel 4 drama 'Tip Toe,' which from the off hits you in the face with the brutal outworkings of a toxic male mindset. Alun Cumming's Scottish born Manchester bar owner Leo Struthers' body is hanging from a lamppost following an execution in his street. There's wailing from his friends as his next door neighbour, David Morrissey's electrician Clive Goss stands in the street in a bit of a daze while his wife, Pooky Quesnel's Marie berates him. Over the course of five episodes, Davies pieces together events leading to the shocking lynching of Leo by Clive and his sons' friends. The retrospective narrative begins a week and a half earlier, with Leo locking himself out of his house while in a state of undress after a young man he has had a one night stand with bolts out the front door, having stolen his lapto...

THE ODYSSEY If someone had told you five years ago that an almost three hour film adaptation of Homer's 'The Odyssey' would take over $1 billion at the box office, you might have thought they were crackers. Yet here we are in August 2026 with Christopher Nolan's star studded, swords and sandals adaptation doing exactly that. Few filmmakers could have pulled off this feat. However Nolan is well up to the task, having proven many times before he is able to deliver jaw dropping cinematic adventures. Here he delivers a stunning adaptation of Homer's poem with an epic movie that has not only enticed audiences in huge numbers but is also mesmerising. Matt Damon takes on the lead role as Odysseus, the king of Icatha and master military strategist, whose failure to make it back from the Siege of Troy sparks speculation over his 20 year absence that he and his men have perished. Back in Ithaca, his wife Anne Hathaway's Penelope has kept the faith despite dozens of suitor...