Latest news with #TheUnlikelyPilgrimageofHaroldFry
Extra.ie
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
No interest in the All-Ireland? Here are five alternatives on Irish TV today
The culmination of the Senior football season is upon us as Kerry take on Donegal in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship today (Sunday, July 27) at Croke Park. Kick off is at 3.30pm, with the match live on RTÉ 2, much to the delight of those who were unable to get their hands on some of the coveted match tickets. Last week, RTÉ revealed that there was an average audience of 980,000 who tuned in to watch Tipperary's magnificent win over Cork in the hurling. The culmination of the Senior football season is upon us as Kerry take on Donegal in the All Ireland Senior Football Championship today (Sunday, July 27) at Croke Park. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile It's down to the final two teams in the football, and while many GAA fans from outside of Kerry and Donegal will tune in on Sunday, there will be some who couldn't give a whistle what the score is at the, eh…. final whistle… Here are five other things you can tune into on Sunday if even the idea of watching some football irks you. RTÉ One at 9.35pm Based on the Rachel Joyce book of the same name, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry follows the story of pensioner Harold Fry as he embarks on a 500-mile trek to Northumberland to see an old work colleague who is in her last days of life. The unlikely trip Harold decides to embark on puts many questions to the viewer including why his wife Maureen is so upset to hear her name, and why it was so important for Harold to go on the grueling trip to see his long-lost friend, leaving his wife at home in Devon. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry follows the story of pensioner Harold Fry as he embarks on a 500-mile trek to Northumberland to see an old work colleague who is in her last days of life. Pic: Quiver Distribution RTÉ 2 at 4pm While you may not have any interest in the Senior Football, maybe the Women's Euros is more up your alley? On Sunday, the English women's team take on Spain in the final of UEFA Women's Euro 2025. The clash takes place at St Jakob-Park in Basel, Switzerland with kick-off at 5pm. RTÉ will be live with all the action including pre-game commentary and a post-match debrief from 4pm. England beat Italy on Tuesday to earn their place in the final while Spain defeated the German national team. While you may not have any interest in the Senior Football, maybe the Women's Euros is more up your alley? On Sunday, the English women's team take on Spain in the final of UEFA Women's Euro 2025. Pic: Maja Hitij – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images TG4 at 3pm Other sporting events taking place on Sunday is the 21st and final stage of the annual Tour de France Beo, which is televised on TG4 from 3pm and will see the cyclists as they undertake the final 132km from Mantes-la-Ville to Paris Champs-Élysées. Irish cyclist Ben Healy made history in the race earlier in the month when he was the seventh stage winner on July 10. Healy joins an illustrious list of Irish cyclists to win at the Tour, including Stephen Roche, Seán Kelly, Sam Bennett, Shay Elliot and Martin Earley. Irish cyclist Ben Healy made history in the race earlier in the month when he was the seventh stage winner on July 10. Pic:Streaming now on Netflix If you really don't like sport and are looking for something to stick your teeth into while the football is on, Amy Bradley Is Missing has been receiving rave reviews since it was dropped on Netflix on July 16. The three-part docuseries delves into the baffling disappearance of 23‑year‑old Amy Lynn Bradley, who vanished in the early hours of March 24, 1998, from her family's cruise cabin balcony aboard Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas while en route to Curaçao. 27 years later, the mystery remains with the series looking at the case through the lens of fresh interviews, previously unseen footage and new leads. If you really don't like sport and are looking for something to stick your teeth into while the football is on, Amy Bradley Is Missing has been receiving rave reviews since it was dropped on Netflix on July 16. Pic: Netflix Streaming now on Netflix There's also plenty dropping in the cinemas recently with Pedro Pascal starring as Reed Richards/ Mister Fantastic in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which just dropped last week. If you don't fancy a trip to the cinema, recommends Happy Gilmore 2, the sequel to Adam Sandler's beloved golfing movie. The sequel of the cult classic comes 30 years later, and as with many sequels, fans were worried but we can report that it is one of the better sequels to have been made in recent years. Happy Gilmore 2 is set 30 years later with Happy winning five more Tour Championships and now a single father-of-five. When his only daughter gets accepted to a prestigious and expensive school, Happy dusts off his golf clubs and gets to work.
The Guardian
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce review – portrait of a patriarch
What would writers do without problematic patriarchs? From King Lear to Logan Roy, they are the linchpins of countless family dramas: adored fathers who dominate and damage their children in equal measure. The new novel from Rachel Joyce, bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Miss Benson's Beetle and others, revolves around one such man: Vic Kemp, a successful artist with four grown-up children. Vic is a widower who raised his offspring alone, and the story begins with him summoning them to a noodle bar to announce that he's in love with a twentysomething called Bella-Mae he met online. He's also the proud owner of a goatee, a surefire sign of an identity crisis. The offspring are aghast. 'If he's so lonely, he could get a cat,' says one. Worse is to come. Before his children can meet her, septuagenarian Vic and 'soulmate' Bella-Mae have left for Italy, where they have a quickie wedding and set up home in Vic's secluded lakeside villa. The siblings are still reeling from this bombshell when they hear that their newlywed father has died suddenly in strange circumstances. Distraught and disbelieving, they descend on the villa hoping for answers and, amid the ensuing confrontations and revelations, the family begins to fall apart. The Homemade God moves between being a page-turning mystery and an astute study of family dynamics, and readers who like a book to pick a lane and stay in it may find this frustrating. But Joyce is a thoughtful writer, and the narrative gear-changes echo the novel's concerns: the gap between image and reality, the difference between who we are believed to be – by ourselves and others – and who we really are. (The enigmatic Bella-Mae is rumoured to be an 'influencer', that most illusory of occupations.) These themes are made manifest in Vic: a self-made man wealthy enough to buy a dreamy Italian villa that is 'the kind of house where a famous artist might live', but insecure about his success, because 'everything he knew about art he learned through copying'. Vic paints from photographs, creating Jack Vettriano-ish images that are popular as posters and greetings cards, but dismissed by critics. One of the mysteries his children hope to solve is the whereabouts of a missing painting Vic was working on before he died – a late masterpiece that might yet prove the sniffy critics wrong. Joyce gradually reveals how Vic's children have been shaped by their father's frustrated ambitions, how the hole at the centre of his life has become the hole at the centre of theirs. The eldest, Netta, has served as pseudo-parent to her siblings while her father was busy with his art (and his boozing and his womanising), while second-born Susan was a pseudo-trad wife, cooking and cleaning for him. Gustav or 'Goose', the only son and a sensitive soul, prefers to hide in the shadows of Vic's studio, preparing his canvases, while Iris, the youngest, has the dubious privilege of being asked to model for a father who paints 'semi-erotic' images. Like many children of neglectful parents, the quartet have formed an uneasy gang, united against the world, but somehow frozen in the roles they adopted as young children, until the shock waves from Vic's death blow them apart. This is what Joyce does best: untangle family ties. She reveals how a family is built on a fragile collective agreement about what that family is: an ongoing collusion. The Kemp children have agreed that Daddy is a great artist, and have distorted themselves to accommodate this idea. Iris, when hugged by Vic, folds her body into his 'to make the smallest possible gift of herself'. Joyce is also exceptionally good at blending the big stuff of life with the small, showing how losing a parent is a surreal mix of gut-wrenching horror and banal admin, interspersed with hysteria and binge-drinking. Susan, being fussed over after Vic's death, observes that 'grief makes an invalid of you and at the same time a kind of celebrity'. The close focus on the siblings can sometimes mean their respective partners and other secondary characters are less clearly seen, but this is a minor quibble in an otherwise sharp, absorbing and emotionally intelligent novel. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce is published by Transworld (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
