With Empire in administration, closing half their cinemas, James Cameron-Wilson finds it hard to be positive. Pixar's Elemental at #1 is a forced morality tale while Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is creaky and overlong. Insidious: The Red Door at #5 is merely blah while Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken at #8 is devoid of wit or flair. James is only enthusiastic about The Flash at #10.

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David Ricardo Pearce talks to the actor Saskia Portway about touring the world with a theatre show, the years she spent at Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, working with Nick Hyntner at the National Theatre and the hard economic realities of Shakespeare's best loved comedy.

originally recorded on 20 November 2014 - but note that A Midsummer Night's Dream is currently on stage at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London

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James Cameron-Wilson comments on the dire state of the UK box office, where Cineworld is filing for administration. With Spider-Man returning to #1, the implausible and predictable No Hard Feelings, with Jennifer Lawrence, enters at #3. Wes Anderson's Asteroid City is #4. Despite liking some of his films and despite a stellar cast, James found this too deliberately quirky and self-indulgent. He was much keener on thriller Extraction II with Chris Hemsworth on Netflix. While lacking in originality, he found the action sequences genuinely thrilling, with one being among the best he's ever seen.

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James Cameron-Wilson takes Simon Rose though the latest box office figures, hit by the hot weather. The new #1 is The Flash with Ezra Miller, which James enjoyed enormously. Take That jukebox musical Greatest Days with Aisling Bea is #6 while the NTLive one-day presentation of Pheobe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag was #11. James found it tragic, unpredictable & very funny and it will be on again. Indy first film Inland was #30 but, despite Mark Rylance, it left James cold.

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James Cameron-Wilson takes Simon Rose through the UK box office chart, down 35%, thanks to the hot weather. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is #2 but the 7th in the series didn't impress James, apart from its intriguing 1990s locations. He was more taken by War Pony, a cinema verité look at growing up as Native Americans though it concentrated more on atmosphere than story. On Disney+, Eva Longoria directed the true story of the creation of the Cheetos snack. A little man made good tale, he found it cheesy and clichéd.

And James also pays tribute to the actress, and former MP, Glenda Jackson.

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James Cameron-Wilson takes Simon Rose through the UK box office figures, up 68%, with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse taking a whopping £9.1m over its opening weekend. Despite the success of this, the longest animated movie ever, James hated it, praying for it to end within 10 minutes of its 140 minute running time. At #5 is The boogeyman, a clichéd and unscary haunted house horror. To his surprise James found Guy Ritchie's The Covenant on Amazon Prime, a character-driven two-handed war movie, impressive and moving.

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James Cameron-Wilson discusses the state of the UK box office where the live-action version of The Little Mermaid is in pole position. With some of the CGI making it feel animated, James thought it a mixed bag. He was no more impressed with the Ben Affleck thriller Hypnotic at #5, which he found silly and unworthwhile. He was, though, keen on the French drama Full Time, with Laure Calamy as a harrassed mother coping with a transport strike, which only made #13 in the chart.

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An ebullulient James Cameron-Wilson guides Simon Rose through the UK box office chart, welcoming FastX, the 10th in the franchise, to the #1 spot. He found it has plenty of laughs, shocks, surprises & thrills, though its opening of £5.9m is well down on previous iterations. He also recommends Are You There, God? It's Margaret, which opened at #4. Based on the Judy Plume novel, he thought it a touching and charming gem. His DVD of the month is the Belgian Oscar-nominated drama Close, which won last year's Grand Prix at Cannes. James thought it one of the most remarkable films he has seen for some time.

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James Cameron-Wilson takes Simon Rose through the latest box office charts, with Guardians of the Galaxy 3 still ruling the roost, though down 56%. Book Club 2: The Next Chapter is #4 with Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen. James found it awful and surprisingy smutty, treating the elderly as alcoholic bubblebrains. He found Brainwashed: Sex - Camera - Power fascinating, being a persuasive documentary about how cinema technique has disempowered and objectified women. He found action thriller The Mother, with Jennifer Lopez, utterly implausible and pointless.

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With UK box office up 80%, James Cameron-Wilson waxes lyrical about Guardians of the Galaxy 3 which he found great fun throughout and impressively inventive. He also recommended two films using non-professional actors. Rodeo (#32) is an impressive insight into the lives of dirt bikers, almost their version of Fast & Furious and is on Curzon screens and at home. Oscar-nominated Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is an utterly absorbing Bhutanese film about a teacher sent to a remote community. James also discusses a 2016 Italian film which has already been remade 20 times, with the French version, Nothing to Hide, on Netflix.

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