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This book is critic-proof.

Even if the damning truth was that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the biggest disappointment this side of Spider-Man 3, it would make not a jot of difference. Already, the seventh instalment of the boy wizard’s adventures has become the fastest-selling book of all time. This review is almost virtually redundant because chances are, you’ve read it already or worse, someone told you what happens in those final few pages.

Harry’s legion of fans had every right to be slightly concerned. 2003’s Order of the Phoenix was a bloated mess, in desperate need of an editor not so fixated on her publisher’s profit margins. The general view in Hollywood was that no-one was going to need to fret over what to cut for the cinematic outing, virtually the whole book could go because scarcely anything actually happens outside of a major character’s death. After such a crushing return following a three year hiatus (the previous four Potter books were released in a rather rapid annual succession), surely Rowling wasn’t about to ruin all that carefully laid groundwork?

In retrospect, Order was a canny move. It remains as frustratingly poor as it was four years ago but it marked a sea change in Rowling’s writing. Gone was the wild-eyed innocence of the first wave, in came a far darker central protagonist, now a brooding adolescent with little respect for authority. As ham-fisted in terms of structure book five was, Rowling was ultimately road-testing her prose and getting her audience used to the sharp shift away from stand-alone books seeded in a subtle fashion with future narrative towards the conclusion of a sprawling epic which would force a re-evaluation of those earlier efforts in lieu of new information.

Lucky then, that The Deathly Hallows finishes the Potter series with a flourish. It is perhaps the most radical of the seven; Hogwarts is barely seen until the action-packed, free-wheeling fight to the finish, and the focus is on Harry, Ron and Hermione like never before at the expense of the vast cast. Inevitably, your favourite is in there but glanced almost fleetingly. In that sense, Deathly Hallows also feels like a fond farewell, something that becomes obvious early on. Thankfully Rowling avoids turning Potter’s swansong into a greatest hits compilation.

However, the book is not perfect. There’s still a worrying amount of superfluous material and Rowling haphazardly advances time swiftly. Much of the middle chunk of this weighty tome is spent with Harry and friends on the run from the Death Eaters but there’s no sense of urgency. After the giddy glee of those first few chapters, much of the momentum feels lost and only a few key set pieces salvage what is otherwise a rather dry patch. Before Rowling knows it, she has to wrap it all up and so what follows is a motherlode of exposition which will be satisfying only once to those gagging to know everything while leaving everyone else quite exhausted.

Bearing that in mind, though, Rowling is a smart author. It’s obvious there’s always been a plan for her cast and she has wisely chosen to write for a growing audience, rather than taking the George Lucas approach and aiming at the same demographic all along. The Deathly Hallows is also undoubtedly the most cinematic of the set, taking some of its cues from the earlier films. On this evidence, it will be a rather exhilarating movie full of duelling wizards having been afforded the luxury of being able to slice much of the middle out.

How does it end? The only way it could. There is a short coda, which neatly puts a bow on that treat you’ve been waiting so very long for. By finishing with such a flourish (and it could easily have come across as clumsy) Rowling ensures that our only memories are fond ones and after all that effort, that no one comes away feeling cheated is a real accomplishment.

If you were going to buy this, you surely would have done by now. On the off chance that you haven’t though, click here.

Every social generation has a musical style that it latches itself to. The 70s had disco and punk, the 80s had pop and metal, and the 90s had grunge and what future generations will no doubt refer to as ‘teeny-plop’.

As for this generation, the style that seems to have caught the current generation of young vibrant wannabes appears to be ‘Nu-Rave’, where new-wave and electronic noise is merged together to create a three minute record. One of the more recent, and probably one of the bands pushing the genre to the masses, are the New Young Pony Club, whose debut album Fantastic Playroom landed on the doormat this week.

The five piece from London have been bubbling under for the last couple of years with a few of their tracks being heard on American TV shows and TV adverts in the UK. With plenty of expectation, a strong first album should be on the cards. However, on first listen, there is only one thought: “Just what is the appeal of this band?” The album seems to be nothing more than a combination of electric drumbeat, keyboard and a singer telling us what she can give us (apparently, some ice cream…). It’s a bit of a disappointment.

However, fast forward two days and the CD gets another play. This time, the album makes more sense. There’s a new appeal to the sound, a sort of early Roxy Music vibe but with a sultry Goldfrapp-esque voice. Tracks that were previously disregarded now sound fresh. After thinking about it for a while, you’re finally able to pinpoint what the problem with the album was.

Being a debut, you look for a grand launch, an album that shows off a band’s work and says“Look at me!” However, this album is more subtle than that. It seems that, rather than pushing for major commercial success, New Young Pony Club have released the debut album that fans want to hear. An album that, although on first listen you may find not to your taste, the second and third listens will reveal influences like Blondie, Talking Heads and the seventies afro beat movement.

This is a well crafted debut which shows in fine light a band with potential; it’s just a pity that it takes a few listens to acknowledge this.

Buy it from here.

In recent years DC have been the comic world’s whipping boys, and for the most part they’ve deserved it. Taking much-loved characters and turning them into one-line jokes, and their insistence on crowbarring the big-three (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) into every single damn storyline regardless of whether it’s warranted have tested the patience of even though biggest of DC fanboys.

52 is a brave attempt at trying a new formula, where the big three are gone (but not forgotten) and a whole host of lesser characters are thrust into the limelight. With a new issue every week for a whole year (52 geddit?), the series was heralded as an example of the new DC, one that would win back old fans, create new ones, and did not require any knowledge of comic-lore.

So does it succeed? Well, yes and no.

Quite how readers managed to stay interested in this series on a week-by-week basis is staggering. Even as a collection of the first 13 weeks, Volume 1 is initially a lumbering collection of plot strands with very few redeeming features. It is a struggle to maintain interest with the fleeting storylines and unfamiliar characters. However, persevere, and a complex interweaving story begins to unravel and draw the reader in. Yes, it’d perhaps be easier to get into with background knowledge about the characters, but are there any books, comics, movies or TV series where that isn’t the case?

Give the collection time to bed in though, and time travel, an axis of evil-esque strand, noirish thriller and good old fashioned action combine to create an unpredictable and enjoyable ride.

52 is clearly aimed at the older reader, with its unflinching violence and seedy undertones. Furthermore, the wordy ‘extras’ at the end of each installment giving details on the creative process would surely drive away younger readers.

The artwork is as slick as you’d expect, but nothing outstanding, while the writing is solid but can be patchy, as would be expected from a team of four writers. However, keep an eye out for Mark Waid’s sparkling dialogue.

Like only seeing one quarter of a 24 part TV series, it’s hard to come up with a reliable verdict, but on the evidence of this volume, 52 looks like it could produce the goods for DC. Roll on part two.

Buy 52 Volume 1 here.

The Void takes a critical look at the latest American series trying its luck in the UK.

Like all good ideas, it started out so well. With a pedigree on television that included the acclaimed West Wing and Sports Night, the anticipation surrounding writer Aaron Sorkin’s latest project, a backstage drama about a live, Saturday night sketch show (comparisons with NBC’s long-running Saturday Night Live are entirely justified) reached a fever pitch. Collaborating with long-time Sorkin alums such as producer Thomas Schlamme, Bradley Whitford, Matthew Perry and Timothy Busfield, expectations were so high that American networks NBC and CBS entered into a bidding war that saw Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip head to the latter for a vast sum of money that was not only virtually unheard but guaranteed that there would be an unhealthy interest in the level of success the show would achieve.

From July More4 begins showing Studio 60 but it’s small wonder you’re going to see it at all. Make no mistake, the pilot episode is essential. An incendiary firework, crackling with smart dialogue and the kind of production values that most shows would kill for (estimates put the price per episode somewhere between $2-3m, not least for the impressive ‘studio within a studio’ set). Studio 60 is the kind of show you can simply wallow in, feeling rather good about yourself.

The show begins innocuously enough until Studio 60 executive producer Wes (Judd Hirsch) goes onstage and delivers a blistering monologue that attacks the sorry state he believes television has fallen into. West is predictably fired shortly afterwards, leading to the recall of Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) and Matt Albie (Matthew Perry), former executive producer and head writer of the previous administration who themselves were originally let go in circumstances that are revealed as the series progresses.

The show’s locale naturally lends itself to tense drama, with the staff of Studio 60 facing the unenviable task of coming up with 90 minutes of fresh material each week while avoiding day-to-day internal conflicts between staff members and increasing pressure from the network, keen to sanitise the product since Wes’ departure. It’s fair to say that while the second episode drastically loses the irreverent momentum of the pilot, it still maintains some semblance of urgency that makes the other early episodes such compulsive viewing. The cast is charismatic enough to propel the witty scripts along at a reasonably slick pace (almost too slick), the only rather obvious weak link being cast member Harriet Hayes (played by Sarah Paulson), one of the three central Studio 60 players and on-off love interest for Matt. Unfortunately the pair are so devoid of any chemistry that not even Perry’s natural timing can save their interactions and Paulson is dreadfully wooden. That future episodes go on to push her character front and centre ring the death knell for Studio 60 and you’ll be forgiven for wondering what on earth Perry’s character sees in her.

In the States ratings tailed off spectacularly following the showing of the second episode and by episode five, the show had lost nearly half its audience. What worked in Studio 60’s favour was the fact that it still managed to retain a large percentage of vital ABC1 viewers, the high net-worth, cash-rich cross-section of American society. As Studio 60’s network president Jordan McDeere (the alluring Amanda Peet) echoes eerily as the ratings honeymoon appears to be over, though the ratings might be falling, the audience being retained is the kind that spend more than the average viewer. Regardless of ratings, as long as the show remains attractive to advertisers, it will still have a future.

As the series progresses, it becomes clear that there is only so much drama that can be wrung from Studio 60’s chief catalyst (‘the show’) and Sorkin decides to enliven proceedings by shifting the focus away from the production and towards the inter-personal relationships between the cast members, inventing increasingly outlandish and supposedly comedic sub-plots to drive the hour along. The seeds for this are sown midway through the first half of the season, and by the time Studio 60 reaches its twelfth episode all bets are off. What was previously a fizzing beacon of quality television has become an insidious melodrama full of haphazard romance and very little of what made the previous eleven episodes so electric.

Studio 60’s descent is a sad indictment of what happens when a show finally realises that it doesn’t know where it’s going or what it wants to be. The addition of such barely funny plot machinations was intended as a vehicle to resuscitate the ailing serial but it pushed viewers away, making the show a tepid shadow of its former self. While Studio 60 had a clear direction to begin with, when the panic button got pushed, it seems that no one quite knew what to make of it. Comedy? Drama? Both? With the crucial tension gone, Studio 60 simply wasn’t as compelling.

Our advice? Just don’t get too attached. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip begins strong out of the gate but struggles halfway through the race. It is a show worth making a start with and the Christmas episode near enough halfway through doesn’t necessarily tie everything up but it could easily serve as a last episode for a show cut off in its prime. Everything else just spoils what might have otherwise really been something.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip starts 10pm 26 July 2007 on More4

Autobiographies are usually rubbish. Biographies aren’t too bad, as they generally show both sides of their character, but autobiographies only focus on the good character traits of people, and tend to avoid mentioning the little things like their drug-fuelled trips to Uganda or the ‘hilarious’ illegitimate children. Luckily, this book is different.

For those who do not know, Guy Pratt was the replacement bassist for Pink Floyd, following Roger Waters and David Gilmour’s “little tiff”. In this book, in which Guy tells tales from his life so far, we hear about his days touring around Australia in his youth, gigging with Pink Floyd and David Gilmour, performing with Roxy Music during Live8 and recording the music for the sitcoms Spaced and The Young Person’s Guide to Becoming a Rock Star.

The difference between this book and a normal autobiography, is that whereas most autobiographies are just spun out in one bash, with exciting and pointless stories woven together unpredictably. Guy has taken time with this book, even to the point of touring the UK with a stage show which was the forerunner to this book. Not only has this ensured that every ‘yarn’ grabs the reader, but it also keeps them totally engrossed and entertained.

This is a great book, mainly as it’s an interesting insight into one of the biggest bands in the world during their difficult years. It’s very very funny, plus who doesn’t like reading about rock stars getting into a spot of mischief now and again?

Purchase this fine literary work here.