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Our guest this week is Harry Melling—all grown up after first hitting the big screen as Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films. He’s here to chat about the latest in a hit parade of pleasingly weird and wonderful post-Potter projects, ‘Harvest’. This trippy period piece sees a mysterious feudal society in an unspecified place and time fall apart after crops fail and sinister strangers arrive. Simon unpacks this unique film with Harry—plus a bit of Potter chat since the HBO reboot has put the wizarding world back in the spotlight.  

Mark reviews Harvest too—along with two more of this week’s biggest cinema releases: ‘Friendship’--a black comedy about male bonding starring Paul Rudd as the new-best-pal-next-door, and ‘Smurfs’--the latest big-screen outing for the little blue fellas. If that didn’t sound like a bit of Mark-bait already, it also stars James Corden. Odds on Kermode going full ‘Grouchy Smurf’ on this one?  

Plus we revisit the Salt Path controversy, including some of your excellent correspondence, run down the Box Office Top 10 and serve up sizeable portions of delectable daftness as always.  

Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): 

Friendship Review: 10:25 

BO10: 18:16 

Harry Melling Interview: 26:50 

Harvest Review: 42:09 

Smurfs Review: 56:18 

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