Brentwood Gazette
GO-AHEAD FOR 97 HOMES DESPITE CONCERNS OF NEIGHBOURS
Cala Homes plans to build 97 homes off Priests Lane in Shenfield
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School competition looks for talented musicians
BRENTWOOD School has announced the launch of the 2026 Brentwood International Music Competition, a now annual event designed to attract and celebrate the world’s most talented young musicians. Following the successful inaugural year that saw...
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Restaurant scoops top national award
TANISHQ Restaurant and Bar, a contemporary Indian dining destination in Ongar, has been crowned Restaurant of the Year 2025 at the Asian Food & Restaurant Awards (AFRA), held at The Dilly Hotel in Piccadilly, London. Competing against leading...
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Hogarth gets into the Christmas spirit
HOGARTH Primary School has been getting in the festive spirit with a calendar full of events. The annual Ho, Ho, Hogarth Christmas market brought together the school community to celebrate the season. Families had the opportunity to visit Father...
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Ambulances put on highest alert level after ‘huge spike’
THE East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST) has moved to the highest alert level due to a “huge spike in demand”. EEAST has moved to Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP) Level 4 in response to sustained high demand on the service and handover...
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Date set for county council elections
ESSEX County Council elections are scheduled to take place on Thursday, May 7, 2026 - a year after they were postponed due to local government reorganisation - the council has confirmed. There had been consternation over the cancellation of elections...
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Church’s starring role in Hollywood thriller
AN Essex church is one of the stars of the third instalment of the Knives Out series of films which is out at cinemas now and comes to Netflix on December 12. Essex has featured in many Hollywood blockbusters and TV shows in the past but now the...
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High Street work comes to an end
A LARGE-scale project to replace the cobble stones in Brentwood High Street with a harder wearing asphalt surface is now complete. Crews replaced old granite stones between Crown Street and St Thomas Road with a smooth asphalt surface, making the road...
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Barleylands to host Christmas market
A POPULAR Essex farm and visitor attraction is hosting a Christmas market at the end of this month. Barleylands in Billericay is hosting a Festive Fayre on November 29 and 30. The Barleylands Festive Fayre will be held across the whole weekend and...
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Pub marks VE Day anniversary with striking mural
ONE pub in Brentwood enlisted the help of an artist to celebrate a significant milestone in British history. The Spread Eagle pub marked this year’s Remembrance Day with a special mural marking the momentous anniversary of VE Day, celebrated earlier...
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Pub re-opens with new look and name
A PUB in Brentwood has reopened nafter a major revamp and a name change. The Chestnut pub has replaced The Chough, which had been standing on the site for generations. The site has now re-opened with a completely new look and new signage. Following...
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SUBURBAN CONSPIRACY
The team behind Slow Horses have turned to writer Mick Herron for inspiration again adapting this story of his into an eight-part drama. When a house in a quiet Oxford suburb explodes and a girl goes missing, neighbour Sarah Trafford (Ruth Wilson)...
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What’s ON
MORTIMER & WHITEHOUSE: GONE FISHING BBC Two, Sunday, October 26, 9pm ■ More tales from the riverbank as Bob and Paul are back for another series of fishing and tomfoolery around Britain’s waterways. This time around they’re visiting people and places...
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ON What’s
HIGH STAKES THE IRIS AFFAIR Sky Atlantic/Now, streaming from Thursday, October 16 From Neil Cross, the creator of Luther, comes this tense eight-part thriller that combines high-tech knowhow with old fashioned cat-and-mouse games. When genius...
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GOING TO EXTREMES
October 10 Stunning scenery and high-stakes drama make for a compelling combination in this 10-part action thriller starring Jason Clarke. He plays US marshal Frank Remnick who has the unenviable task of trying to find and capture dozens of violent...
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ON What’s
LOOK WHO’S BACK BBC One, Friday, October 3, 9.30pm Blazers and chinos at the ready, Norfolk’s most enduring light entertainment celebrity is back for a new series of cringe-inducing encounters and situations. Freshly returned from Saudi Arabia, Alan...
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BACK ON THE ROAD
He may be 82, but Michael Palin shows no signs of slowing down or taking it easy as he sets out on another travel adventure following his recent trips to Iraq, North Korea and Nigeria. This time he’s heading to South America to the troubled country of...
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ON What’s
9pm Sky Max and Now, Friday, September 5, This mockumentary about an American local newspaper is actually a spin-off of The Office US and is executive-produced by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant so it arrives with a good pedigree. It follows the...
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ON What’s
COSY CRIME THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB from Thursday, August 28 Netflix, streaming Richard Osman’s best-selling, hugely popular whodunnit comes to the small screen with high expectations thanks to the involvement of Steven Spielberg’s production...
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1066 AND ALL THAT
KING AND CONQUEROR BBC One, Sunday, August 24, 9.10pm and streaming on BBC iPlayer The Battle of Hastings is one of the most famous, consequential conflicts in British history yet it’s something most of us know relatively little about – which this...
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ON What’s
BY THE BOOK ■ THE latest project from the ever-inventive Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, The League Of Gentlemen) is an intriguing proposition as he plays a bookshop owner with a penchant for solving crimes in this post-war drama. Gatiss is the enigmatic...
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ON What’s
HEADS OF STATE Prime, streaming now ■ Don’t let the notion of plausibility enter your mind when you watch this comedy action thriller and there’s a decent chance you might actually enjoy it. The heads of state in question are British Prime Minister...
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TWISTED FIRESTARTERS
SMOKE Writer Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) and actor Taron Egerton previously collaborated on the excellent Blackbird for AppleTV and they’ve teamed up again for this new nine-part thriller based on true crime podcast Firebug. Egerton...
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ON What’s
OCEAN WITH DAVID ATTENBOROUGH Disney+ and National Geographic, streaming now ■ He may have turned 99 recently but Sir David Attenborough is showing no signs of winding down in either his involvement in landmark documentaries or campaigning for...
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ON What’s
STICK Apple TV+, streaming now ■ In the wake of Ted Lasso, here comes another sporting underdog series to warm the cockles of your heart. Owen Wilson plays Pryce Cahill, a golf prodigy who was destined for greatness until an on-course meltdown ruined...
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ON What’s
MOUNTAINHEAD Sky Atlantic/Now, streaming from Sunday, June 1 ■ Jesse Armstrong’s black comedy about the rich and powerful, Succession, provided us with one of the most addictively watchable series of recent years and the writer/director is back with...
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STATION WORK TO START IN SEPTEMBER:
SPRINGWATCH BBC Two, Monday, May 26, 8pm ■ Springwatch is back and it’s celebrating its 20th year with two new locations where we can enjoy seeing some of Britain’s diverse flora and fauna. Springwatch stalwarts Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan...
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KIA’S RUNAWAY SUCCESS WITH ELECTRIC CARS:
LONG WAY HOME Apple TV+, streaming from Friday, May 9 ■ Biker boys Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman are back for a new series of adventures on two wheels. The trip doesn’t sound too epic at first – travelling from a house in Scotland to a house in...
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IMPRESSIVE RANGE FROM NEW VOLVO
CONCLAVE Available on various streaming services ■ With the death of Pope Francis, the Vatican will initiate the business of selecting his successor in an ancient and secretive election process that was depicted in one of the best films of last year,...
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ON What’s
ANDOR: A STAR WARS STORY, DISNEY+, streaming now ■ The first series of this slowburn Star Wars series came out at the tail-end of 2022 to much acclaim, with showrunner Tony Gilroy building a prequel story to the Rogue One film that felt very grounded...
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FOOTBALL STAR THANKS AIR AMBULANCE:
THE STOLEN GIRL, DISNEY+ streaming now ■ The stuff of parental nightmares is examined in this five-part thriller based on Alex Dahl’s novel Playdate. When Elisa Blix (Denise Gough) lets her young daughter Lucia sleep over at her new best friend’s...
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ON What’s
DOCTOR WHO BBC One, Saturday, April 12, 6.50pm and on BBC iPlayer ■ The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) is back for another series of galaxy-jumping, timehopping adventures and this time he has a second companion in tow as Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) joins...
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What’s ON
BLACK SNOW BBC Two, Friday, April 4, 9pm ■ The first series of Black Snow proved to be an intriguing variation on the police procedural as Travis Fimmel’s outsider Queensland detective James Cormack investigated a cold case in rural Queensland while...
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CHILDREN ENJOY SCIENCE WEEK FUN:
TRIBE BBC Two, Sunday, March 30, 9pm ■ Twenty years ago Bruce Parry took TV travel shows in a new direction when he embedded himself into tribal communities around the world, not just observing how they lived but joining their tribe and living like...
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BEST OF TV AND STREAMING What’s ON
HAPPY FACE Paramount+, streaming from Friday, March 21 ■ This eight-part crime drama is based on a true-crime podcast and book about a reallife case which just about sums up where we are with our fascination with the darker side of human behaviour....
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TROUBLED YOUTH
ADOLESCENCE Netflix, streaming from Thursday, March 13 ■ This ambitious and challenging drama follows the story of 13-year-old Jamie (an impressive Owen Cooper) who is arrested for the murder of one of his school mates. A tense and intriguing...
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ON What’s BEST OF TV AND STREAMING
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY BBC Four, Saturday, March 1, 9pm ■ This six-part crime drama is a remake of acclaimed Welsh language thriller Cleddau, and promises to be just as gripping. The shocking murder of a nurse in a small coastal town opens up old...
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TROUBLE IN SOHO
DOPE GIRLS BBC One, Saturday, February 22, 9pm ■ Talking of girl gangs, this six-part series looks at the women running the drugs trade and London’s nightclubs in the years after the First World War. The focus is on Kate Galloway (Julianne Nicholson),...
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What’s ON
BEHIND THE SCENES THE WHITE LOTUS Sky Atlantic, Monday February 17, 9pm ■ The black-humoured satire set amid the moneyed classes in luxury hotels returns for a third series, this time located at a beach resort Thailand. An entirely new cast has been...
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TOP TIPS FOR LANDING YOUR DREAM JOB:
UNFORGOTTEN ITV1, Sunday, February 9, 9pm ■ Sinéad Keenan and Sanjeev Bhaskar are back as DCI Jessica James and DI Sunny Khan who are set to embark on another series of investigations into grisly crimes. The first episode sees them called to Whitney...
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ON What’s
SHOAH BBC iPlayer, streaming now ■ With Holocaust Memorial Day this week, Claude Lanzmann’s epic documentary recounts the horrors the Nazis visited on millions of people through interviews with witnesses, both perpetrators and survivors. It may be 40...
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ATAPON SCOOPS £100,000 PACKAGE OF PRIZES:
PRIME TARGET Apple TV+, streaming now ■ THIS eight-part thriller sees White Lotus and One Day star Leo Woodall take the lead as brilliant but cranky maths genius Edward Brooks. He thinks he’s on the verge of a major breakthrough which will have...
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ON What’s
SEVERANCE Apple TV+, streaming from Friday, January 17 ■ Ben Stiller’s dystopian workplace series was a cult hit on release three years ago and now we catch up with Adam Scott’s Mark Scout of LA firm Lumon Industries again to find out what new...
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THE TOP FITNESS TRENDS OF 2025:
MONTY DON’S BRITISH GARDENS BBC Two, Friday, January 10, 8pm ■ IN THE depths of winter we need someone to remind us it’s won’t be cold, dark and bleak forever and Monty Don is the man to do that with this series celebrating British gardens in all...
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FIGHT FOR TRUTH
LOCKERBIE: A SEARCH FOR TRUTH Sky Atlantic, Thursday, January 2, 9pm ■ This five-part drama starring Colin Firth looks at the fight for truth and justice in the wake of the Lockerbie bombing of December 1988 which saw a passenger jet explode over the...
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FUN IN THE SUN
THE SPLIT: BARCELONA BBC One, Sunday, December 29, 9pm ■ The Abi Morgan drama about a family of female lawyers returns for a two-part story as they decamp to Spain for a wedding. Nathan (Stephen Mangan) and Hannah’s (Nicola Walker) daughter Liv...
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FRESH START
DEATH IN PARADISE Sunday, December 22, 8.30pm ■ The continuing success of Death In Paradise despite - or maybe because of - its continual change of lead character shows what a powerful combination a crime mystery and a beautiful setting is. The series...
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LUNAR MISSION
FLY ME TO THE MOON AppleTV+, streaming now ■ Our enduring fascination with space exploration past and present will only get more intense with the amount of extraterrestrial missions taking place now, but this film looks back at those heady days of the...
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SPYING GAME
BLACK DOVES Netflix, streaming from Thursday, December 5 ■ This taut espionage series sees Keira Knightley make her bow in a prestige TV drama and she’s made a good choice with this sinewy, unpredictable six-parter. She plays Helen, a member of the...
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ART AND VIOLENCE
RENAISSANCE: THE BLOOD AND THE BEAUTY BBC Two, 9pm ■ Charles Dance stars as Michelangelo in this three-part documentary drama that looks at how some of the most renowned artworks of Western civilisation were produced in an era of relentless plotting,...
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WAR STORY
BLITZ AppleTV+, streaming from Friday, November 22 ■ Director Steve McQueen (Hunger, 12 Years A Slave, Widows) has had a diverse career and this film sees him delve into the realms of Second World War drama and, although it seems pretty conventional...
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TEAM WORK
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE Disney+, streaming now ■ The Marvel Cinematic Universe was enduring a dramatic slump until this superhero team-up revived its box office fortunes over the summer, making more than $1 billion globally with what is the...
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TUDOR ELITE
WOLF HALL: THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT BBC One and BBC iPlayer, Sunday, November 10, 9pm ■ The third novel in Hilary Mantel’s awardwinning trilogy of historical fiction about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell gets a six-part adaptation two years...
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NATURAL WONDERS
ASIA BBC One, Sunday, November 3, 6.20pm ■ This landmark seven-part series promises some incredible wildlife footage as it surveys the flora and fauna of this enormously varied continent. In the first episode, the focus is on the sea – Asia has the...
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PAST AND PRESENT
BEFORE Apple TV+, from Friday, October 25 ■ In a departure from his usual comedy roles, Billy Crystal takes the lead in this brooding psychological thriller which ratchets up the tension over ten episodes. Crystal plays child psychologist Eli, who’s...
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EXCESS ALL AREAS
RIVALS Disney+, streaming from Friday, October 18 ■ This big-budget adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s raunchy 80s novel has already got plenty of hype before it has even aired, so expect to hear plenty about it in the coming weeks as this frothy tale of...
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MALE VIOLENCE
CURFEW Paramount+, streaming from Thursday, October 10 ■ This six-part crime drama based on the novel After Dark, by Jayne Cowie, looks at issues around women’s safety and male violence from a different angle. Set in an alternative world, men are...
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JUSTICE ON TRIAL
SHOWTRIAL BBC One, Sunday, October 6, 9pm ■ Series two of the high-octane courtroom drama begins with the death of a wellknown climate activist, Marcus Calderwood, killed in a hit-and-run who, with his last breath, names a policeman as his killer....
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