The Zone: What to listen, read, watch and stream this week

Now Streaming 

Doctor Sleep
Now TV
Years following the events of The Shining (1980), a now-adult Dan Torrance must protect a young girl with similar powers from a cult known as The True Knot, who prey on children with powers to remain immortal.

Trackers
Now TV
Three stories about South Africa weave together involving organized crime, smuggling diamonds, state security and an international terrorist plot.

The Crown: Season 4
Netflix
The fourth season of the acclaimed royal drama sees Olivia Colman return as Queen Elizabeth, covering events from 1977 to about 1990.

JJingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
Amazon Prime
Festive family musical starring Forest Whitaker as a toymaker who enlists the help of his inventive granddaughter after his ex-apprentice steals his most prized creation.

El Presidente
Amazon Prime
The head of a small Chilean football club becomes a key player in the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal.

Angels of the North: Season 2
BBC iPlayer
Sammyjo makes a shock announcement, and there are potential promotions for the juniors and a mishap at Ashleigh's housewarming party.

DNA
BBC Iplayer
Rolf Larsen, a respected detective on the Copenhagen police force, has his life brutally upended when his baby daughter goes missing. Five years later, a new lead emerges.

Parasite
Amazon Prime
Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.

Truth Seekers
Amazon Prime
A team of part-time paranormal investigators use homemade gizmos to track the supernatural, sharing their adventures online. As their haunted stake outs become more terrifying they begin to uncover an unimaginable, apocalyptic conspiracy.

The End of the F**king World: Season 2
Netflix
The BAFTA-winning second series of the hit dark comedy-drama series arrives on Netflix.
A budding teen psychopath and a rebel hungry for adventure embark on a star-crossed road trip in this darkly comic series based on a graphic novel.

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
Netflix
Acclaimed animated film following Miles Morales who finds himself saving the multiverse alongside various other Spider-Men.

Can You Hear Me? Season 2
Netflix
Three friends in a low-income neighbourhood find humour and hope in their lives as they grapple with bad boyfriends and their dysfunctional families.

His House
Netflix
As a young couple from war-torn South Sudan seeks asylum and a fresh start in England, they’re tormented by a sinister force living in their new home.

Twenties
BBC iPlayer
Wannabe screenwriter Hattie is an unapologetic, queer, African-American woman. Hollywood isn’t ready for her. Is she ready for Hollywood? Figuring-it-out comedy by Lena Waithe.

Out of Her Mind
BBC iPlayer
Sara reacts badly to her sister Lucy’s announcement that she is engaged and attempts to justify her position with scientific evidence that love is mere chemicals. Her analogy upsets Lucy and winds up her best friend Scoopy – who reminds Sara that she reacted in the same way when she announced her pregnancy. Lucy points out that Sara was also engaged once, but this doesn’t help. Scared she is losing her sister to marriage and her best friend to a baby, Sara attempts to make a new friend, Luna, weho works in a local cafe

Now Reading

Mr Wilder and Me
Jonathan Coe

In the heady summer of 1977, a naive young woman called Calista sets out from Athens to venture into the wider world.
On a Greek island film set, she finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. But the time she spends in this glamorous, unfamiliar new life will change her for good.
While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his new film with German money, and when Calista follows him to Munich for the shooting of further scenes, she finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the dark heart of his family history.

Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems
Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

In this revolutionary book, prize-winning economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo show how economics can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems. From immigration to inequality, slowing growth to accelerating climate change, we have the resources to address the challenges we face but we are so often blinded by ideology.
Original, provocative and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times offers the new thinking that we need. It builds on cutting-edge research in economics and exploring the most effective solutions to alleviate extreme poverty to makee a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect.

Now Listening 

The Socially Distanced Sports Bar
Nata Media

Mike Bubbins, Elis James and Steff Garrero have set up a bar to talk about sports... but they get distracted and talk about everything from Kimbo Slice, Cadfael and John Noakes.

Transmissions: The Definitive Story of New Order and Joy Division
Joy Division/New Order

Based on new and exclusive interviews with Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook this series captures those vivid moments that tell their tale like never before.

The Sink: A Sleep Aid
BBC Radio
A new comedy-horror from Natasha Hodgson. She will play your dreams back to you so you can see yourself clearly.

Top TV Picks

McFly: All About Us
ITV, Saturday
Intimate and emotional interviews with the four members of the pop group, followed by a gig filmed at the Union Chapel in London in front of an audience of family and friends. Featuring never before seen footage of Tom, Danny, Dougie and Harry at various points in their careers, and a discussion of how time spent in group therapy helped them to make a comeback with a triumphant reunion gig at the O2 and the release of their first album in 10 years.

Journey’s End
BBC Two, Saturday
France, March 1918. Raleigh, a naive and idealistic young officer, arrives at the Western Front and asks to be posted to the company of his old school friend Captain Stanhope. He joins a trench full of fear, as the men await their grim fate while trying to cope with the daily pressures of the war

Children in Need
BBC One, Friday

A jam-packed evening of socially distanced entertainment, with exclusive sketches, exciting performances, music, dance and a few surprises. Mel Giedroyc is joined by Alex Scott, Chris Ramsey and Stephen Mangan, who will all be co-hosting the fund-raising telethon for the first time.

Red Sparrow
Channel 4, Saturday
Ballerina Dominika Egorova is recruited to a Russian intelligence service, where she is forced to use her body as a weapon. Her first mission, targeting a CIA agent.

Small Axe
BBC One, Sunday
Steve McQueen’s drama anthology based on the real-life experiences of London’s West Indian community from the late-1960s to the mid-1980s. The film tells the story of the Old Bailey trial of Frank Crichlow, the owner of West Indian restaurant Mangrove in Notting Hill, who in 1970 was one of nine men and women wrongly arrested and charged with incitement to riot and affray after a protest about racial discrimination by the police. Starring Shaun Parkes, Letitia Wright and Malachi Kirby.