Heartstopper (Netflix)
Wolf (BBC One) | iPlayer
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (Amazon Prime Video)
The Hidden World of Hospitality With Tom Kerridge (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Who could dislike Heartstopper, Alice Oseman’s uplifting Netflix drama about young queer love, now returning for a second eight-part series? You may as well hurl abuse at a butterfly. The first series was an instant phenomenon, telling the story (spoilers ahead) of Charlie (Joe Locke), the schoolboy victim of homophobic bullying with a painful crush on star rugby player Nick (Kit Connor), who eventually reciprocates.
Yes, a love story, excellently played with blushing, sugary, PG wholesomeness by the young leads. But one with sweetness as a candy coating for a societal truth bomb: that these days, teenagers (the clued-up ones anyway) aren’t so hung up about the spectrum of sexuality. Still, with Charlie and Nick getting together in a Pride whirlwind of warm fuzzies, didn’t it signal the natural end of the show?
To deal with that, the second series expands more determinedly into the wider universe of Truham grammar school. Alongside Nick and Charlie’s relationship, there’s a deeper dive into Tao (William Gao) and trans schoolgirl Elle (Yasmin Finney), and the lesbian couple, played by Corinna Brown and Kizzy Edgell. There’s also exam pressure, a school trip to Paris, lots of kissing and even a (gasp!) “hickey”. That’s it, mind. More is hinted at in some hazy off-screen future, but Heartstopper remains a resolutely chaste world away from the Carry on Rutting montages of Sex Education.
Along the way, there’s the delicate issue of Nick coming out as bisexual, plus trauma, eating disorders and family tussles (not everyone is as nice as Nick’s mum, portrayed by Olivia Colman as a living saint in Seasalt separates). Illustrations still flutter across the screen to represent emotions (Heartstopper started as a series of graphic novels). Texts are still agonised over as though they’re binding judgments from the high court of WhatsApp.
The preternatural emotional intelligence of the young cast occasionally gives them a stiff, speechifying, prematurely aged air. And even in these relatively enlightened times, Heartstopper is provocatively unrealistic – though I think it knows it can’t single-handedly “solve” homophobia with a spray of sparkle-heart emojis. What it does is offer a kind of entry-level queer-world starter kit for people who aren’t quite ready for It’s a Sin. It’s television with the guts to be radically sensitive, and that never gets old.
On BBC One, the new six-part thriller Wolf prowled like a dangerous animal escaped from a zoo. Based on Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery novels, created and written by Megan Gallagher, it’s such a mishmash of genres (detective story, cold case, slasher) and tones (suspense, horror, high-camp) that watching it feels like gorging on a crazed tapas board of competing TV styles.
At the heart of the show is Ukweli Roach, who plays a brooding detective haunted by his brother’s childhood abduction. Then there’s a family (Juliet Stevenson, Owen Teale, Annes Elwy) held captive at their Welsh mansion by stagey sub-Leopold and Loeb sociopaths, played with Pinter meets Orton-esque archness by Doctor Who’s Sacha Dhawan and Iwan Rheon (Ramsay in Game of Thrones).
There’s also the anniversary of a murder on a “donkey pitch” (cue Saw-level blood-spattering gore from droog killers in hazmat suits). Elsewhere (all episodes are available to stream), Wolf delivers rave culture, snakes, swords, bereft fathers searching for answers, sinister goths and intestines strewn over trees in the shape of a heart. Still not enough? Can I interest you in a dog with a limp?
To be clear, Wolf, from the Sherlock production stable, is preposterously overstuffed. A late scene involving motorised crocodiles redefines “jumping the shark” for a whole new generation. That said, the country mansion/home invasion strand is a blast. It’s terrifically performed (particularly by Dhawan and Rheon), properly macabre and tense (“Have you worked out who I am yet?”), with dark twists looping all the way to the end.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (Amazon Prime Video) is a seven-part Australian-set drama that plays out like a long, terrible but ultimately potent ode to female damage and redemption. Adapted from Holly Ringland’s bestselling novel, produced by the same company as Big Little Lies, it tells the story of the titular character (portrayed as a child by Alyla Browne, then by Alycia Debnam-Carey), who survives a fire that kills her violent father and pregnant mother and is taken to live at a remote flower farm with her strange, distant grandmother, June (Sigourney Weaver).
This isn’t for the faint-hearted. Stark themes (abuse, death) intermingle with flawed, exhausted humanity as Alice uncovers the mysteries of the “flowers” (the female workers at the farm), and the secrets and lies swirling up from the choking Australian dust.
I could have done without the relentless uber-hippy ambience (why do female-heavy dramas tend towards this?). However, The Lost Flowers… is beautifully filmed, from the house at the farm (even the walls seem stained with tea and loss) to the sunset-drenched drama of the desert craters. In a strong cast (including Asher Keddie and Leah Purcell), Weaver gives a stellar performance as the battling June, trying to fend off monsters in the real world and ghosts in all the others. If you can take the stubbornly leaden pace, this is worth your time.
In the eight-part BBC Two series The Hidden World of Hospitality With Tom Kerridge, the Michelin-starred chef travels around the country visiting restaurateurs to see how they’re managing in the post-lockdown, post-Brexit world of food price hikes and staffing difficulties.
In last week’s second episode, Kerridge remained a genial host, admiring the “entrepreneurial spirit” of the owners of the Beefy Boys as they open a new burger restaurant in Cheltenham: with hours to go, and no meat to be seen, they still laughingly crack on and triumph.
It’s a different mood when Kerridge is shown, sadly, closing his Manchester restaurant the Bull & Bear, a project with former Manchester United and England football player Gary Neville, which joined the thousands of other casualties of the pandemic. As Kerridge drives away, ashen-faced, it doesn’t seem fanciful to feel the restaurant business is once again revealed as the ultimate emotional rollercoaster with added service charge.
Star ratings (out of five)
Heartstopper ★★★★
Wolf ★★★
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart ★★★
The Hidden World of Hospitality With Tom Kerridge ★★★
What else I’m watching
Martin Amis: Money and Memories With William Boyd
(BBC Four/iPlayer)
It still seems unbelievable that Martin Amis died in May. This short but reflective piece by his great friend and fellow novelist William Boyd was part of BBC Four’s Amis-themed celebratory evening.
Dr Death
(Channel 4)
The penultimate episode of the true crime drama about Christopher Duntsch, the US neurosurgeon found guilty of gross malpractice, resulting in the maiming and death of patients. Starring Joshua Jackson and Christian Slater, it’s genuinely alarming.
Love Island: The Live Final
(ITV2/ITVX)
A shock final result and a long overdue return to form for the series. From the Fake Bake self-tans to the fake-looking feelings, for the first time in forever I will miss it.
• This article was amended on 8 August 2023 to correct the name of school in the series Heartstopper – it is Truham grammar school.
