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Godsend by John Wray review – the girl who joins the Taliban

In this bold novel of enormous emotional intelligence, an American convert reinvents herself as a boy in her quest to become a holy warriorAden Grace Sawyer is 18 years old, “a serious girl, an asker of questions”. Alienated from her comfortable suburb…

In this bold novel of enormous emotional intelligence, an American convert reinvents herself as a boy in her quest to become a holy warrior

Aden Grace Sawyer is 18 years old, “a serious girl, an asker of questions”. Alienated from her comfortable suburban California surroundings by family breakdown – her father has left home following an affair, and her mother has slipped into alcoholism – she turns to Islam for consolation. Her choice appears to be guided in equal measure by a genuinely spiritual urge for submission to the transcendent, and a more prosaic youthful defiance. Still in the Bay Area, she dons Afghan-style shalwar kameez, and crops her hair rather than wear a hijab. Next she plans to migrate to a godly country. Because Decker, her blustering boyfriend and travelling companion, has Afghan roots and cousins in Karachi, they head for Pakistan.

Aden’s father is a professor of Islamic studies at Berkeley, and has warned her of the limited “possibilities for a woman in that part of the world”. Aden has too much attitude to accept any sort of limitation and so reinvents herself, improbably but credibly, as a boy. With bandaged breasts, and “hidden by her clear and perfect strangeness”, she becomes Suleyman, Qur’anic student and potential holy warrior. Soon she’s attending a madrasa in the tribal areas of the Pakistani-Afghan borderlands. “So far away,” she whispers triumphantly. Too far for unlucky Decker, who only planned an adventure holiday. To sustain her role, Aden now refuses to sleep with him.

Best supportive wife: how female characters fare at the Oscars

This year, Amy Adams is set to face off against Claire Foy for their roles as wives of important men from history, a long-running Academy traditionIt is often said, only semi-jokingly, in Hollywood that the best supporting actress Oscar has the incorre…

This year, Amy Adams is set to face off against Claire Foy for their roles as wives of important men from history, a long-running Academy tradition

It is often said, only semi-jokingly, in Hollywood that the best supporting actress Oscar has the incorrect moniker. Best supportive actress is closer to the mark for an award frequently handed to women playing the stoic, loyal wives or partners of great and/or troubled men – often in that most Oscar-favoured of genres, the biopic.

Hey Duggee at the Cinema! review – CBeebies earns its movie badge

An hour-long compilation of favourite preschool TV episodes brings simple pleasures for toddlers and in-jokes for the grownupsAs regular viewers of the BBC’s preschoolers channel CBeebies will know, Hey Duggee is an animated series about a friendly dog…

An hour-long compilation of favourite preschool TV episodes brings simple pleasures for toddlers and in-jokes for the grownups

As regular viewers of the BBC’s preschoolers channel CBeebies will know, Hey Duggee is an animated series about a friendly dog who runs Squirrel Club, an activity group for assorted youngsters of all species: mouse, crocodile, hippo. (Everybody’s welcome in this inclusive, anthropomorphic utopia.) Alexander Armstrong narrates in plummy, jolly tones, animator andassistant director Sander Jones does Duggee’s droll “woofs”, while young actors voice the rest of the cast.

This package, assembled for theatrical release, collates several of the show’s best episodes and it’s not hard to see why the series is so treasured by fans of all ages. Much like Peppa Pig, which it resembles a little too closely, the character design, supersaturated colour palette and highly stylised animation have an easily decipherable, eminently replicable simplicity, all the better to appeal to young minds and spawn a million items of merchandise. Every plot revolves around an effort by the troop to win badges, like Cubs or Brownies. Troop leader Duggee awards them to those who have completed tasks such as running an obstacle course.

The Grand Tour review – Clarkson and co skid ever further into irrelevance

The three petrolheads return with more of the same old cars, rants and bants – on Amazon, where they can be safely ignoredAh, Jeremy Clarkson. Remember? We used to talk about him all the time, whether we wanted to or not. Then he punched his producer a…

The three petrolheads return with more of the same old cars, rants and bants – on Amazon, where they can be safely ignored

Ah, Jeremy Clarkson. Remember? We used to talk about him all the time, whether we wanted to or not. Then he punched his producer and had to leave Top Gear, Piers Morgan replaced him as the nation’s foremost choleric millionaire troll, and the world moved on. Wherever did he go? Into the lucrative but fragmented realm of internet TV, where since 2016 Amazon has been employing Clarkson, along with his sidekicks Richard Hammond and James May, to front a different cars-and-bants show called The Grand Tour.

This arrangement suits everyone. Last year, leaked internal figures showed how Amazon measures the worth of an original programme by estimating how many new subscribers it attracts. On that metric, The Grand Tour laps everything else. It’s visibly expensive to make, and Clarkson and co earn even more than they did on Top Gear. But for Jeff Bezos, they’re worth it. That The Grand Tour is hardly ever mentioned by anyone who doesn’t watch The Grand Tour is of no concern.

IO review – post-cataclysmic Netflix adventure aims high, lands in middle

Margaret Qualley and Anthony Mackie add gravity to a sci-fi drama about a dying Earth that marries admirable ambition with inconsistent plottingIn promotional blurbs, Netflix describes its newest original film, IO, as set on “post-cataclysmic” Earth. I…

Margaret Qualley and Anthony Mackie add gravity to a sci-fi drama about a dying Earth that marries admirable ambition with inconsistent plotting

In promotional blurbs, Netflix describes its newest original film, IO, as set on “post-cataclysmic” Earth. It’s a fitting description – somewhere between calamity and full apocalypse – for a film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Too measured and sedate for a post-apocalyptic thriller, yet too barren for a Christopher Nolan-style space and time travel epic, IO appears most akin to The Martian in that it focuses primarily on one person’s grit and resourcefulness to endure and grow plants in an unforgiving place.

Banksy artwork found on garage in Wales sold for six-figure sum

Garage owner sells Seasons Greetings to expert but it will stay in Port Talbot for nowA Banksy artwork that appeared on a nondescript garage in a Welsh town has been sold to a dealer for a six-figure sum.The garage’s owner, Ian Lewis, has sold the piec…

Garage owner sells Seasons Greetings to expert but it will stay in Port Talbot for now

A Banksy artwork that appeared on a nondescript garage in a Welsh town has been sold to a dealer for a six-figure sum.

The garage’s owner, Ian Lewis, has sold the piece, Seasons Greetings, to the Essex-based Banksy expert John Brandler but it will stay in Port Talbot, at least for the time being.

‘Neither north nor south’: Nottingham by Carol Adlam – an urban cartoon

Author-illustrator Carol Adlam looks at liminal spaces caught between this Midlands city’s industrial past and its drive towards the futureSituated at the very centre of England, Nottingham is neither a traditional “northern” or “southern” city. With a…

Author-illustrator Carol Adlam looks at liminal spaces caught between this Midlands city’s industrial past and its drive towards the future

Situated at the very centre of England, Nottingham is neither a traditional “northern” or “southern” city. With a a significant working class and industrial legacy that has left its traces on the cityscape in the lace-market, the extensive network of caves that run under the city, the canal, and derelict industrial-era mill buildings, it is also. Socially it is divided: on the one hand it is a thriving city with two universities; on the other, there remains significant social deprivation in areas such as Nottingham north, with very low literacy levels.