Inside the Social Network: Facebook's Difficult Year, BBC Two review - how big can it get?
A force for good or Big Brother in the making?
Not everybody is on Facebook, yet. So far, Mark Zuckerberg’s social media monolith has only managed to scrape together about 2.3 billion users, roughly one-third of the planet. But as this fascinating documentary revealed, Facebook’s plans are huge and its ambitions boundless.
Superhoe, Brighton Festival 2019 review - a darkly vital one-woman show
Nicôle Lecky's raw, persuasive play about sex work, social media and female empowerment
Tonight comes with a caveat, delivered before proceedings begin by the one-woman show’s writer and performer Nicôle Lecky, who’s sitting in a chair centre-stage. She damaged her foot during Sunday’s matinee at the Brighton Festival, dancing about, and has since had to do the whole thing seated.
Eighth Grade review - a dazzlingly real portrait of a teenage girl
Comedian Bo Burnham's powerful directorial debut pushes all the awkward buttons
“Hey guys, it’s Kayla, back with another video. So, the topic of today’s video is being yourself.” Kayla Day (the wonderful Elsie Fisher, nominated for a Golden Globe and also heard as the voice of Agnes in Despicable Me) is in her last week of eighth grade in upstate New York, compounding the horror of being 13 years old by making self-help YouTube videos in her bedroom. “As always, make sure to share and subscribe to my channel. Gucci!” she signs off chirpily, with Enya’s Orinoco Flow as surprisingly effective background music. But is anyone watching?
Brexit: The Uncivil War, Channel 4 review - Benedict Cumberbatch gets the best tunes
James Graham's bullish Brexit fantasia is more gripped by Leave than Remain
One day this all will be over. Give it half a century. In 50 years' time, there will be documentaries in which today’s young, by then old, will explain to generations yet unborn exactly how and why Britain went round the twist in 2016.
Skate Kitchen review - sisterhood in the skate park
Following female skateboarders in NYC, Crystal Moselle's new film is almost a documentary
“Let’s get a clip, Long Island.” One New York skateboarder encourages another, who’s from the ‘burbs, to show off ollies, pop shuvits and kick-flips for a YouTube video. But hang on: “There are too many penises in the way.” This is a posse of young women, a rare sighting in the male world of the skate park.
Niall Ferguson: The Square and the Tower review - of groups and power
Meditations vertical and horizontal on history and politics, control and communication
The controversial historian Niall Ferguson is the author of some dozen books, including substantial narratives of the Rothschild dynasty, a history of money, and a study of Henry Kissinger up to and including the Vietnam war.
Gone Girl
'Unfilmable' book triumphantly brought to the screen by David Fincher
Some feared that turning Gillian Flynn's bestselling novel into a movie couldn't be done, but with Flynn herself in the screenwriter's chair and the clinically precise David Fincher wearing the director's hat, it's turned out a treat. It's long at 145 minutes, but it needed space to accommodate its titillating mix of police procedural, whodunnit, social satire and psychological drama.
Storyville: Google and the World Brain/How Hackers Changed the World, BBC Four
Two very different perspectives on internet culture and trends
At what stage will the trend among journalists and documentarians to regard anything relating to the internet with suspicion or, worse, ignorance come to an end? Although I recognise that my relationship with information technology has never been exactly typical, this stuff has been easy enough to access for more than half of my life now. And I’m not exactly young.
Dave Gorman, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
A masterclass in the power of PowerPoint
Following a rejuvenating foray back to his one-man-with-a-mike stand-up roots throughout 2009 and 2010, this summer Dave Gorman returned to the Edinburgh Fringe after an eight-year absence to launch Dave Gorman's PowerPoint Presentation. The man who invented the genre of data-heavy, technology-based interactive comedy with Are You Dave Gorman? and Googlewhack Adventure once again found a haven in the Apple Mac and comedy pie chart; could we have been forgiven for thinking that he was playing it just a little safe?