Stephen graham

Boiling Point is a single-take drama set during a busy service at a London restaurant and it has to be the most stressful film of the year. I realise it’s early days, but if a more stressful film comes along I would be most surprised. If this film were a recipe, the first instruction would read: ‘Nerves, shred.’ Followed by: ‘Put in pressure cooker and whack the temperature up.’ It is brilliantly executed but also one of those films you can find compelling and engrossing while praying for it to be over. It stars Stephen Graham, that little powerhouse of a fella, who now serves as a kitemark, surely. (Has

‘The world is hell, and men are both the tormented souls and the devils within it.’ This was the cheery epigraph from Schopenhauer with which The North Water introduced itself — aptly, as it transpired. Certainly, BBC2’s starry new Victorian drama is not for those who prefer their television characters to be loveable. The first person we met was Irishman Henry Drax (Colin Farrell), who gruntingly concluded his business with a Hull prostitute before heading for the docks in a way familiar to viewers of Victorian TV dramas: shamble up the cobbles, straight on past the women in shawls, turn left at the urchins. Following a restorative dose of rum,