On a bright and unseasonably warm February day, hordes of people gather four or five deep around the perimeter of the Olympic Village. The phones and selfie sticks are out, clutches of policeman keep a watchful eye, and the horses hoping for a glimpse of… something, at least, as no one seems to be going in or out bar police cars.

Luckily the athletes are largely spared feeling like they’re in a zoo, because there’s a walled perimeter around the Village and several control points intruders must get through in order to access the oasis that is the Village itself.

Once inside the vibe is different: the dismal rain of the last few days has stopped and athletes and staff are dotted around, reclining on sun loungers and milling about, looking for all the world like ordinary people and not world-class sports stars.

A group of Polish athletes take pictures of each other by the Olympic rings in a central plaza; I spot an Italian gymnast slumped on a beanbag chair and a young Taiwanese athlete grinning ear to ear as she tests her coach’s air hockey skills.

It’s a bright, leafy, airy space – and perhaps surprisingly corporate, with brand names emblazoned everywhere. There are umpteen different spaces to relax, from a Corona Cero plant shop (if you keep your plant alive until the end of the Games, you get a gift) to a dimly-lit Samsung gaming room. There are also mindfulness sessions and a DJ – although not at the same time.

Unlike at a Summer Olympics, Team GB share a building with other teams; France, China, Georgia and Latvia are essentially just down the hall. The 10 British athletes in Milan – figure, short-track and speed skaters – have a corridor to themselves. It’s got the feeling of a high-class uni halls, with an inviting lounge space far nicer than any common room.

Two rooms have birthday balloons stuck to the doors – figure skater Luke Digby and physio Callum are celebrating their birthdays on the day I visit – and Team GB’s Carly Hodgson says “We try to make it a home away from home”. Before the athletes arrived good luck cards from friends and family were already waiting on their windowsills, while each of the athletes and staff were given a bracelet with the Team GB symbol. Most of the decor in fact is GB merch, from flags in every room to the endless clothes each athlete is provided. And of course there are the 5,000 tea bags stashed in the kitchen.

The GB space features a physio room, presided over by doctor Victoria, and drawers and drawers full of medical equipment – 4.3km worth of surgical tape included. There’s also a stretching area and a corner with a well-used PS4; short track skater Niall Treacy says the lads in the squad all compete to record the fastest lap on a Silverstone simulator. “I went on the bike for an hour and a half and found my coach trying to beat my time,” he says.

open image in gallery

Treacy is one of the lucky ones to have his own room; some of the others share, with rooms allocated based on who has early morning alarms to get to the ice rink, to avoid waking up those in action later in the day.

Everything has been thought of, from 120 spare pairs of snow socks to 310 plug adaptors.

For the athletes all that needs to be done is to settle in, relax, and then get themselves in the zone to compete when the time comes.

open image in gallery

As at Paris 2024 pin-trading is a favourite pastime – ice dancer James Hernandez is said to have an impressive collection already – and Treacy says ruefully, “I got scammed by someone from Athlete365 [an IOC initiative], he asked if we could trade pins and then I found out my coach got one for nothing.”

But the 25-year-old is not too worried about the pins at the moment, with practice to get on with. Team GB cars and special Olympic transport are on hand to ferry them to the rink – and bring them back to this little haven at the end of the day.

Twinless is a classic comedy, in that no matter how much you laugh, you can never shake the feeling that the essence of the situation is tragic.

Roman is grieving the death of his identical twin brother Rocky in a traffic accident. He finds solace in a new friend, Dennis, whom he meets at a support group for people whose twin has died. Dennis provides the missing half Roman grieves for, and accompanies him as he shops for groceries, folds laundry and goes to hockey games.

Roman is stereotypically straight, and is also drawn to Dennis because, like Rocky, Dennis is gay. Dennis is talkative where Roman is taciturn, worldly where Roman is naive, and seems to have been able to move on while Roman remains grief-stricken. But Dennis harbours a shameful secret that threatens not only his friendship with Roman, but his own safety.

Twinless is likely to be the sleeper hit of the year, a great piece of entertainment that takes on life’s absurdities and its mundanities.

Not a single detail is out of place in its observational humour, from the grief support group leader who yearns to do stand-up, to the defensive office manager whose response to receiving a surprise birthday cake is to complain that her workmates have brought her personal life into the workplace.

It is the latest in a spate of films that includes Saltburn, Friendship and Lurker, which depict male friendship as at once intense and alienating. In each of these films, the protagonist’s attraction to his potential friend is motivated more by a need for self-validation than genuine interest in the other person. Friendship here becomes narcissistic, and is won through deception rather than a desire for genuine connection.

What gives these films their pathos is the context of the so-called epidemic of male loneliness. US data show that the number of men with six close friends or more has dropped from 40% in 1990 to 15% in 2021, while the number of men who report no close friends at all rose in the same period from 3% to 15%.

Such loneliness can be exploited by misogynists such as Andrew Tate, whose fantasies of domination present masculinity as a rigid hierarchy.

This finds its alternative in the so-called incel community, an identity whose novelty is its own definition as unwanted. Donald Trump won a majority of males in the 2024 US presidential election not through conventional campaign methods of slick messaging, but by showing them he had time for them, in events like his three-hour podcast “hang” with Joe Rogan.

Exploring masculinity in film

There is nothing new in saying that ideas of masculinity sit uneasily with those of friendship. Competition, self-reliance and – horror! – the implication of homosexuality load male relationships with the potential for anxiety. One way of overcoming these anxieties is found in the buddy movie, a genre in which the joyous energies of comedy-action provide a licence for regression to boyhood.

The buddy movie’s negative counterpart is the gothic figure of the double or doppelganger, whose terror is that the masculine virtues of individualism may be less stable than they seem. What these twin possibilities leave out is any positive model of what it looks like to be adult, male and friends.

This more recent spate of films combines comedy and threat, buddy and double. Rather than contrast joyous sociability with anxious individuality, it is sociability itself that is the source of anxiety. This speaks perhaps to a more insecure contemporary desire, one where self-affirmation is achieved by gaining a public. We are already long past the point where social media redefined the very meaning of the word “friend”.

Such distanced intimacy offers the classic comic potential of incongruity, between an image of suave assurance and a reality of bumbling pettiness. But it also foreshadows a tragic fate that our contemporary times might hold up as especially acute: that one might simply be a nobody.

Where Twinless differs from Saltburn, Friendship and Lurker is that its combination of comic absurdities and potential danger contains also a deep heart. In his friendship with Dennis, grief-stricken Roman depicts something that our culture usually finds very difficult to imagine: an image of straight masculinity that is actually lovely.

Roman may be monosyllabic, reactive, basic and naive – but he is also caring, uncritical, open and warm. Most exceptionally of all for a depiction of masculinity, he listens to others, and this listening helps him grow.

This recent cycle of black comedies dramatises how dangerous it can be when masculinity remains stuck in the view that social validation means winning a fight. Twinless touchingly, funnily and even beautifully at times demonstrates the transformative potential of what it might mean if masculinity were also to be seen as being a friend.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Iranian and American officials will kick off face-to-face talks in Oman today, following weeks of threatened military action by Donald Trump.

The US is sending its Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the Muscat summit, where he will meet with Tehran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi.

It comes amid a continued American naval build-up near Iran, which Mr Trump has described as an “armada”.

He has repeatedly threatened to take military action since the Iranian regime launched a bloody crackdown against protesters who took to the streets of cities across the country last month.

While his rhetoric has cooled somewhat from its bombastic peak, the White House has maintained that the president remains willing to forego diplomacy.

His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters on Thursday: “While these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at ​his disposal, aside from diplomacy as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world.”

Iran has also threatened to hit back in the event of strikes, which saw the US withdraw some personnel from its large military base in Qatar.

Share

Advertisement

Iran threatens US with ‘regional war’

So what’s the point of the talks?

Iran has been in a long-running dispute with the West over its nuclear ambitions.

The regime insists its programme is meant for peaceful, not military purposes, but the US and Israel have accused the regime repeatedly of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry has said it would engage in the talks “with responsibility, realism, and seriousness”, with a willingness to reach a “mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue”.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has suggested they should cover more ground – including the regime’s arsenal of ballistic missiles, support for armed groups in the wider Middle East, and “treatment of their own people”.

Tehran has flatly ruled out talks on ‌its “defence capabilities, including missiles and their range”.

More from Sky News:
Starmer ‘fighting for his political life’
‘How I escaped man who became serial killer’

An analyst at US thinktank FDD, Edmund Fitton-Brown, said it was “very difficult” to envisage a breakthrough.

Military conflict, therefore, “is more likely than not”, he said.

Stamford Bridge Community Pool is described as one of the village’s “greatest assets”.

Hosting generations of birthday parties, swim sessions and children’s lessons, the pool in Church Road is well used, year-round.

Recommended reading:

But in recent weeks, fears have mounted about its future.

The pool needs up to four new lifeguards or it will be forced to close for open swims and private hires this summer.

Speaking about this, chairperson of the pool committee Shelley Lawton said: “Our two lovely lifeguards are leaving us before summer.

“Ideally we would hire up to four new lifeguards, two of whom will receive a training package kindly paid for by the parish council.”

Shelley explained that sadly, small community pools like Stamford Bridge’s do not have the resources to train their lifeguards in-house.

(Image: Supplied)

She said that lifeguards are required to re-train every two years – something that is usually self-funded by employees.

Faced with the possibility of losing the pool, Shelley’s committee had begun turning customers away.

She said: “We have been so stressed – our pool means everything to us.

“It caters for all ages in the community – from babies first swims, to hosting five primary school lessons, family sessions and classes for those over 55.

“Our elderly users particularly benefit from regular visits; it’s important to them, their health and serves as a means to make friends.”

‘Without support, we risk losing something truly special’

A spokesperson for Stamford Bridge Parish Council said that the pool was a facility most villages of its size could “only dream of”.

They added: “Without support, we risk losing something truly special.

“We were proud to give funding to the pool to ensure new lifeguards can be trained.”

Shelley said the pool wanted to hire the new lifeguards in time for a taster session given by the facility’s current lifeguards in the coming months.

An appeal has since been shared widely on social media – and has received more than 15 applicants, the parish council confirmed.

For more information, please email info@sbcpool.org.

For Shakespeare’s Hamlet “the world is out of joint”. In screen writer Michael Lesslie’s collage of Shakespeare’s play, directed by Aneil Karia, Riz Ahmed’s intense, grief-wrecked Hamlet pays a high price as he tries to “set it right” in a corrupt corporate world.

This Hamlet is a radical adaptation that mostly uses Shakespeare’s words but relocates to contemporary, uber-wealthy south-Asian London. Hamlet has had a south-Asian makeover before now, most famously in Haider; a 2014 action packed Hindi film set in 1990s Kashmir. Karia’s Hamlet, however, is far moodier, more muted and uneven. Some of it is brilliant, some less so. But there is a stunning pay off at the end.

The recent film Hamnet repositioned Hamlet as a response to Shakespeare’s son’s death. Ahmed’s prince also returns the focus to fathers – after all Shakespeare’ father died around the time Hamlet was written. The film asks the audience: whom can we trust?

The opening has Hamlet performing Hindu funeral rites on his father’s body, guided by his concerned uncle Claudius (Art Malik).

Within moments of the coffin going into the furnace and the lavish wake beginning, Hamlet is taken into a side room where Claudius announces he will marry his brother’s poised and pragmatic widow, Gertrude (Sheeba Chadha). This will protect Elsinore, the ruthless family business of developers and builders.

With Hamlet in shock from this announcement, his friend Laertes (Joe Alwyn) takes him off to the drug-fuelled sensory overload of a night club. Laertes and his sister Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) in this film take on the role traditionally played by Horatio, becoming close friends and confidantes.

Ophelia, like Hamlet, is disgusted by corporate corruption although, as the daughter of Claudius’s chief adviser, Polonious (Timothy Spall), she benefits from Elsinore’s rapacious deals. But as Laertes tells the pair, she is no bride for the future head of Elsinore. An arranged marriage within his culture and one that is advantageous for Elsinore is assumed to be in store for Hamlet.

Overwhelmed by the nightclub music, dance and drugs, Hamlet flees out into the night and a decaying London, with skyscrapers on the horizon and walls graffitied with anti-Elsinore slogans. It is here that Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father, King Hamlet (Avijit Dutt).

The existence of the ghost of King Hamlet is witnessed in Shakespeare’s play by several characters other than Hamlet, including the sensible Horatio. However, in this film only Ahmed’s Hamlet sees this ghost. Is the ghost real?

Hamlet follows his father to the top of a half-built skyscraper. Speaking in Hindi, with no subtitles provided, King Hamlet tells his son that he was murdered by his brother, Claudius. Or at least that is what audiences familiar with the play might infer.

The play-within-a-play, The Murder of Gonzago, which Hamlet stages in order to confirm his uncle’s guilt is here presented as a blistering south-Asian dance at Gertrude and Claudius’s splendid wedding banquet. The dance depicts Gonzago’s murder by poison, leading to his wife’s hasty remarriage – a clear parallel to Hamlet’s situation. As in Shakespeare’s play, Ahmed’s Hamlet believes that Claudius’s reaction proves he murdered his father. However, this where the film begins to diverge from Shakespeare’s story.

The brilliant choreography (by classical Kathak dancer Akram Khan) reads, within the logic of this film’s narrative, as a direct threat of violence towards Claudius. The dancers’ fists create a funnel for poisoned wine to be tipped into the dancer Gonzago’s ear while Hamlet, apparently deranged by grief, watches eagerly.

After his nephew has caused maximum embarrassment at the wedding, Claudius’s subsequent attempts to dispose of Hamlet make sense. The dance delivered a warning to Claudius and the long term future of Elsinore is at stake. But crucially, while Shakespeare shows Claudius subsequently trying to pray, and explicitly acknowledging his guilt, Karia’s film cuts this confession.

The risk to others as Hamlet works through his grief is clear. “To be or not to be” is delivered as Hamlet drives at manic speed in a high-performance car on the wrong side of the road towards an oncoming lorry, briefly lifting both hands off the steering wheel. While the audience may still believe in Hamlet, mesmerised by the intense closeups on Ahmed’s anguished face, they might also start questioning his judgment as he enacts his revenge.

Spurts of blood fly everywhere as Timothy Spall’s Polonius has his throat slashed after responding to Gertrude’s cries for help when a manic Hamlet corners her. Disposing of the body, Hamlet encounters a statue of Ganesh, the remover of obstacles.

It seems, however, that the god might not be totally on his side when one of Claudius’s thugs attempts to dispose of Hamlet by staging his suicide, forcing him to slash his own wrists. Luckily, he is rescued by Fortinbras, the leader of a band of homeless tent-dwellers, all dispossessed by Elsinore. Shocked by their misery, Hamlet decides to give it all away and signs over his shares in Elsinore to Fortinbras.

After divesting himself of his stake in the business, Hamlet heads home seeking revenge. When Claudius flees into the garden of the palatial family residence, he stops and waits for a dying Hamlet to catch him up. This is puzzling.

As his nephew sticks a broken bottle into his guts, Claudius states with his very last breath, “I loved my brother”. Prince Hamlet unravels. The ghost is, like the witches in Macbeth, untrustworthy. In grief, Hamlet has, he acknowledges, become “bewitched”. King Hamlet was part of the corruption and so now is his son.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Stuart Diamond murdered 17-year-old Christopher Hartley by strangling and dismembering him in 1997, but has never disclosed where the teenager’s severed head is located

Stuart Diamond, a man who brutally murdered 17 year old Christopher Hartley in 1997 and has since refused to disclose the location of the teenager’s decapitated head, has been deemed safe for release. Diamond lured the teenager to a flat on December 30, 1997, where he strangled and dismembered him.

Christopher’s mutilated remains were discovered in a bin behind a hotel. Diamond was subsequently convicted of the murder and detained at Ashworth High Security Hospital in Maghull, Liverpool under the Mental Health Act, reports the Liverpool Echo..

During his sentencing, the judge warned: “It is clear you are a very dangerous young man. The most anxious consideration will be given as to whether it will ever be safe to release you.”

Despite serving beyond his minimum sentence, Diamond remained behind bars largely due to the relentless efforts of Christopher’s mother, Jean Hartley. She told the Liverpool Echo last week that her son’s murderer had never provided them with closure by revealing the location of Christopher’s severed head.

In February 2025, Diamond was granted a deferred conditional discharge by a mental health review tribunal, indicating that arrangements for community care were yet to be established. However, the now 48 year old Diamond appeared before the Parole Board last month, where it was determined that further imprisonment was no longer necessary for public safety.

He is now set to be released back onto the streets of the north west, subject to stringent licence conditions imposed by the Parole Board.

Parole documents obtained by the Liverpool Echo reveal that the panel identified several risk factors that could increase the likelihood of Diamond reoffending. Diamond informed the panel he had been carrying a kitchen knife because of growing paranoia and acknowledged he had needed support.

He also discussed the devastating effect the crime had on the victim’s family, and the panel determined he had demonstrated “significant victim empathy”, according to the documents. The panel noted that during the period of Diamond’s offending, he was misusing drugs and alcohol and “had been willing to involve himself in violence and to act without thinking about the consequences”.

The panel concluded: “In this case, protective factors, which would reduce the risk of reoffending, were considered to be Mr Diamond’s improved ability to manage violent situations and the fact that there had been a lack of evidence of violence for a number of years. Mr Diamond had also developed a sense of structure and routine in his life.”

The documents reveal that Diamond had been assessed through independent living arrangements and had been granted unescorted community leave. He has previously spent periods in the community on overnight stays.

Ms Hartley, who resides in Kirkby, told the Liverpool Echo last month that Diamond’s crimes had inflicted “unimaginable suffering”. She said: “I still to this day have nightmares – it has destroyed my whole family.”

Ms Hartley added: “I hate Diamond. I can’t forgive him for putting my family through hell.”

Christopher was raised in Burnley before relocating to Blackpool, where he secured employment at the seaside resort’s Pleasure Beach.

On the day he was killed, he had left his sister’s house and encountered Diamond, who had relocated to Lancashire from Ireland.

Diamond’s 1999 trial heard how the killer strangled and smothered Christopher before dismembering his body into three pieces in the bathroom shared by residents of the flats. Police discovered blood stains and tissue in the property, along with Diamond’s fingerprint in Christopher’s blood on a stool leg.

The jury dismissed his claims that drug dealers had carried out the killing to frame him for the crime. Diamond fled to Ireland following the murder and was extradited to face trial.

It later emerged Diamond had two prior convictions for violence, including an 18-month stint in a young offenders’ institution after slashing a man’s face with a knife.

A psychiatric assessment from an earlier conviction revealed Diamond had fantasised about committing murder. He had been released on licence just weeks before he killed Christopher.

Ms Hartley told the ECHO that Diamond’s absence of remorse and agonising refusal to admit his guilt meant he should never have been freed from prison. She added that if he were ever released, she would live in constant fear of coming face-to-face with her son’s killer.

Following the hearing, the parole panel concluded: “Mr Diamond had completed necessary work to address identified risk factors and areas of his life that had impacted on his behaviour towards others. The panel noted there was no ongoing evidence of problematic behaviour, emotional instability, poor compliance or pro-violent attitudes.”

Diamond’s release conditions include:

• To comply with requirements to reside at a designated address, to be of good behaviour, to disclose developing relationships, and to report as required for supervision or other appointments.
• To submit to an enhanced form of supervision or monitoring including a specified curfew.
• To comply with other identified limitations concerning contacts, activities, residency and an exclusion zone to avoid contact with victims.
• To continue to work on addressing defined areas of risk in the community.

Christopher’s family have previously voiced concerns that a killer shouldn’t be freed into society if they’ve never spent any time in a mainstream prison. Current legislation permits those convicted of murder to apply for parole directly from high-security psychiatric facilities.

Ms Hartley questioned: “How can he be fit to live in the community if he has never been fit to be in a normal prison?”.

The bereaved family have launched a petition demanding changes to UK parole laws for those found guilty of murder. Their online campaign states: “While mental health care is vital for the rehabilitation of offenders, it must not replace the core principle of accountability for serious crimes such as murder. Allowing parole without prison time undermines justice, erodes public confidence and places additional emotional strain on victims’ families.”

A representative for the Ministry of Justice informed the ECHO: “Being held in a psychiatric hospital does not change the minimum time a life-sentence prisoner must serve before they can be considered for release. The offender’s liberty is restricted, and they must complete treatment before any return to prison or release into the community.”

Luckily you can help prevent this issue with some simple steps

Advertisement

A neurologist has highlighted an often “overlooked” risk factor for both strokes and dementia. You may not realise that your mouth health is linked to these conditions.

In a video shared on the social media platform TikTok, Dr Baibing Chen, also known as Dr Bing online, emphasised the importance of maintaining good dental hygiene.

Dr Chen said: “ One risk factor for stroke and dementia that people often overlook is dental and gum health and let me explain. Large studies have now shown that people with gum disease, cavities or major tooth loss have higher stroke risk.

“And many of these studies control for things like socioeconomic status, income, or other demographics and risk factors, and the association still held. Now, some people will say, well, of course, because people who take care of their teeth also tend to take care of the rest of their health.

And they may be right. In statistics, we call this residual confounding, where healthy behaviours tend to cluster together, and it is very hard to separate one habit from the rest. So this does not prove that bad teeth directly causes strokes.”

But he said that gum disease can result in inflammation. He continued: “It’s important to know that chronic gum disease can create ongoing inflammation. Inflammation can damage blood vessels, and oral bacteria have been found inside clots that cause strokes.

“And this is why sometimes I check my patient’s teeth during my physical exam. It’s not about judging what their teeth look like, it’s more about understanding their whole health picture.”

He added: “People who see their dentist regularly, people who brush more consistently, and people who protect their gums tend to show lower stroke risk in large studies. Not zero risk, but lower.

“So think of your oral health as part of your brain health. So flossing, water flossing, and brushing is not just protecting your smile and your breath, it may be also quietly protecting your brain.”

A study, published in Neurology journal in 2023, backed Dr Bing’s claims. Study authors wrote: “Among middle age Britons without stroke or dementia, poor oral health was associated with worse neuroimaging brain health profiles.

“Genetic analyses confirmed these associations, supporting a potentially causal association. Because the neuroimaging markers evaluated in this study precede and are established risk factors of stroke and dementia, our results suggest that oral health, an easily modifiable process, may be a promising target for very early interventions focused on improving brain health.”

To keep your teeth healthy, the NHS recommends you:

• Brush your teeth twice a day
• Clean between your teeth
• Cut down on sugar
• Quit smoking
• Limit your alcohol intake
• Have regular dental check-ups

‘Better than Broadchurch’

Advertisement

With countless British crime dramas available to stream, choosing what to watch next can feel overwhelming. Massive successes such as Happy Valley, Line of Duty and Adolescence have captivated both audiences and critics.

Recent years have also seen viewer favourites including Vera, Unforgotten, The Fall, Luther and, naturally, Peaky Blinders. However, a brand new drama has just dropped that’s already being hailed as “better than Broadchurch”. And it’s available to stream right now.

Launched within the past week, Under Salt Marsh boasts an impressive cast featuring Kelly Reilly (of Yellowstone fame), Rafe Spall of The English and legendary acting powerhouse Jonathan Pryce, whose credits include The Two Popes, The Crown, Game of Thrones and Glengarry Glen Ross, which has been dubbed the film with the “greatest cast of all time”.

The moody, atmospheric new drama, which holds a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, unfolds in an isolated coastal village in north-west Wales under threat from rising sea levels. Known as Morfa Halen in the programme, it’s actually inspired by the genuine Welsh village of Fairbourne, whose inhabitants genuinely face the possibility of abandoning their picturesque village due to rising sea levels, reports the Express.

Sequences from the series were shot in the village itself. The breath-taking footage of marshland featured throughout was captured in the nearby Mawddach Estuary. It’s within this wetland setting that Reilly’s character, Jackie Ellis, a former detective turned teacher, discovers the corpse of a young lad. Whilst tragic on its own, the find also brings back the trauma of an unresolved case involving a missing girl from the village three years earlier, which brought Ellis’s policing career to an end.

Advertisement

Reviewers claim it “could be the best British crime drama in years”. In Vogue, Daisy Jones wrote: “It’s hard to find a genuinely compelling British crime drama these days. Netflix is crammed with throwaway Harlan Coben offerings… ITV detective shows are a dime-a-dozen… But Under Salt Marsh… is one such drama that’s worth paying attention to. It’s one of the more gripping thrillers I’ve seen in years.”

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Craig Mathiseon described Under Salt Marsh as “as good as Broadchurch”, the massive success featuring Olivia Colman and David Tennant that aired from 2013-2017. Meanwhile, Irish News declared it “the best thing on TV right now”.

Is Under Salt Marsh based on a true story?

Under Salt Marsh features two distinct storylines. One centres on the finding of a young boy’s remains (and the unresolved vanishing of a missing girl three years before). This isn’t based on actual events.

The other focuses on the environmental crisis threatening the community. And this is rooted in actual events. Whilst Morfa Halen is fictional, it’s inspired by (and shot in) Fairbourne, where residents were told in 2013 they could become the globe’s first “climate refugees”.

Authorities said then that the village’s sea defences wouldn’t be kept up after 2054, with a “managed retreat” strategy proposed that would see inhabitants relocated and the village ultimately surrendered to the ocean.

Residents mounted fierce opposition to the proposals, which have never been spelled out in significant detail, and it appears officials may now be backtracking and prepared to abandon earlier pledges to “decommissioning” the community.

Under Salt Marsh is streaming on Now TV now.

Charlotte Hamilton thought the council had made a mistake when she received the bill for her business, Cots to Tots in Haxby, last year. “It was a bit of a shock when that came,” she said.

But the rate increase was very much real – and will likely rise again in April, when Covid-era discounts for businesses come to an end.

For Cots to Tots, which sells new and pre-loved equipment for babies and children, the business rate changes come on top of a 27 per cent rent increase, as well as hikes to its service charges and utilities.

Cots to Tots owner Charlotte Hamilton outside the shop in Haxby (Image: Charlotte Hamilton)

Charlotte, 46, said she welcomed calls for further support for the high street, adding that she has witnessed other businesses in Haxby close due to rising costs.

The married mother of two from Appleton Roebuck added that her business has also seen a drop in footfall.

She said the drop in footfall started during the pandemic when buyers moved online but has got worse in the past two years.

Her business, located in Haxby Shopping Centre, has been in the town for the past 13 years.

But Charlotte admitted that people had “forgotten we were here”, as customers stopped using the shop after their children grew up.

Charlotte decided to write to her customers on Facebook as a “last resort”, urging people to share the word about the business.

“We are not asking for anything big – just awareness,” the post said. “If you love what we do, please tell a friend, share a post, or pop in to see our amazing savings on preloved, new, and refurbished items.”

“We didn’t want it to seem like a begging call,” Charlotte said. “It was just what we could put out to encourage people.”

Recommended reading:

She praised the response to the post, saying it has resulted in people raising awareness about the business in the community.

“There’s a lot of local people coming in and saying, ‘We have loved your shop and we wouldn’t want to see you go’,” Charlotte said.

“I want to thank people for all the support. Keep sharing and we’ll get some new people coming through.

“Our best form of advertising has always proven to be word of mouth and recommendations. If anyone is able to leave us a review on our Facebook page that would be amazing.”