Staying In: What To Do At Home This June
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1 week ago
Seasonal recipes, buzzy new books, TV launches and gardening inspiration
While the sunnier weather often means we’re out and about more, late spring and early summer at home also brings plenty of joy. This season offers bountiful fresh produce, meaning it’s a great time to get stuck into some seasonal cooking – think juicy strawberries, fresh elderflower and asparagus. There’s lots to be getting on with in the garden too, whether that’s getting green-fingered with some flower planting or lying on the grass with a chilled glass of rosé and a good book. And let’s be honest: whatever the weather, we’re always up for a bit of TV time, and thankfully May has seen a spate of exciting show launches too. Read on for your ultimate guide to staying in this month.
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The C&TH Staying In Guide: June 2026
WATCH
(c) Apple TV
Cape Fear
No, not the 1991 film directed by Martin Scorsese, nor the 1962 film directed by J. Lee. A third adaptation of John D. MacDonald’s 1957 southern gothic The Executioners begins today on Apple TV, with a two-episode drop – and it’s a seriously nail-biting watch. Robert De Niro passes the baton to Javier Bardem as Max Cady, the psychopathic rapist who terrorises married couple Tom (Patrick Wilson) and Anna Bowden (Amy Adams), two attorneys who played a role in putting him behind bars 17 years ago. Now exonerated with a greater knowledge of the law, it’s time for Cady to enact his law-evading revenge. Unforgettable images stick to the brain from the 1991 version: Cady’s heavily tattooed body, his predatory theatre monologues, his religious fanaticism. Stretched over 10 hours, we can expect even more harrowing twists in this version. Two episodes streaming now with new episodes on Fridays.
Leila Farzad as Nat, Hugh Skinner as Jacob, Dylan Brady as Will, Jessica Raine as Zoe, Nicholas Pinnock as Solomon, Antonia Thomas as Jess and Maria Almeida as Avery in Two Weeks In August. (Various Artists Limited/BBC/Robert Viglasky)
Two Weeks In August
There is nothing quite like the promise of two weeks in the sun… That is until it all goes wrong. Launching tomorrow evening on BBC One, Two Weeks in August promises sun, secrets, and a slow-burn spiral, written and created by Catherine Shepherd – the writer behind series like Sally4Ever (2018) and The Shrink Next Door (2021). As Catherine recently told C&TH we should: ‘Expect a thrilling ride. And to laugh, I hope. I think it’s really funny. It’s exciting, it’s emotional, but I hope really entertaining and fun.’
Clarkson’s Farm
Jeremy Clarkson is back on our screens this June for a fifth instalment of his hit Prime show, Clarkson’s Farm. Season five will return to Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds, with a whole host of new challenges for Clarkson, Kaleb Cooper, Lisa Hogan and the team to navigate. For instance, the entire farm is put under lockdown due to an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis; meanwhile Clarkson is going through his own health battles after being rushed to hospital for a heart problem. There are some big moments for Cooper in this season too: he takes his first trip abroad and also welcomes his third child with partner Taya.
First three episodes drop on 3 June, Amazon Prime
Tina Fey as Kate and Colman Domingo as Danny in season 2 of The Four Seasons. (Emily V. Aragones/Netflix © 2025)
The Four Seasons
Netflix’s beloved comedy-drama The Four Seasons is back for season 2, with all episodes streaming now. Based on Alan Alda’s 1981 romcom of the same name, the eight-part comedy drama centres on three married couples – Nick (Steve Carell) and Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), Kate (Tina Fey) and Jack (Will Forte), and Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani) – who embark on a seasonal getaway together every winter, spring, summer and autumn. But their carefully laid annual plans crumble when Nick decides to leave Anne. After the sad ending to season 1, the gang is back together for four more seasonal sojourns, including the Jersey Shore beach and the mountains of upstate New York.
Pip Fitz-Amobi (EMMA MYERS) in A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. (BBC/Moonage Pictures/Sally Mais)
A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder
If you have a teenage daughter to entertain this summer, the BBC has you covered: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is back for series two. Based on Holly Jackson’s trilogy of novels, Wednesday star Emma Myers leads as Pip, a precocious teen in the leafy, close-knit village of Little Kilton who refuses to accept the answers of the adults around her when they just don’t seem quite right. In series one, that meant launching her own investigation into the murder of a girl at her school five years ago (under the guise of a school project), while in series 2 Pip launches an investigative podcast when another local teenager goes missing. It’s a wonderful teen drama for the modern age – and you’ll probably end up being gripped by the action too.
Dutton Ranch
If you’re a diehard Yellowstone fan who has long yearned to see how Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser)’s love story plays out, we have good news. A release date has finally been announced for the long-awaited sequel, Dutton Ranch, which follows the lovebirds as they settle in Texas to start a new life. The couple have long been fan favourites – both as individual characters and for their ride-or-die, decades-long romance. Rip is the ruthless but fiercely loyal cowboy with a good heart; Beth is the wild, unapologetic family matriarch who will stop at nothing to protect the ones she loves. Together they help one another heal from their trauma, and their love remains unwavering despite the tumultuous landscape in which it was built. But can they make it last in South Texas where, as Paramount summarises, ‘blood runs deeper, forgiveness is fleeting, and the cost of survival might just be your soul’?
Bella Maclean as Taggie and Alex Hassell as Rupert Campbell-Black in Rivals season 2. (Disney)
Rivals
Jilly Cooper’s beloved bonkbuster is finally back. After a ten-month shoot in the bucolic Cotswolds, the first three episodes of Rivals season 2 are now streaming on Disney+ – perfect for some weekend bingeing. With the season 1 finale leaving the fate of Venturer and Corinium hanging in the balance, David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer, Alexander Hassel, Nafessa Williams, Bella Maclean and plenty more all return to 80s Rutshire, battling for control of the local TV station. Indeed, Rivals is turning into a real who’s-who of British acting, with Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett joining the cast for the second instalment. As for what to expect, the on-set Rivals costume designer Ray Holman tells C&TH: ‘We’re still in the Cooper universe. It’s deeper. And there are bolder things to come.’ Bolder than tennis totally in the nude? Consider us tuned in.
LISTEN
The Louis Theroux Podcast
Louis Theroux is back with an eighth series of his eponymous podcast, which sees him interviewing cultural influencers from all walks of life with his trademark nuance and humour. Guests in this series include football legend Gary Lineker (the first episode, out today), Spice Girl Mel C, chef Marco Pierre White and YouTuber Andrew Callaghan. New to the podcast? Go back and listen to the back catalogue: Theroux has chatted to Simone Ashley about Bridgerton, Florence Pugh about intimacy coordinators, tennis star Boris Becker on his tumultuous romantic life off the court, singer Lulu on her affair with David Bowie and Marina Abramovic on the stories behind some of her most famous works. First episode out 10 June.
Stories in Colour
Did you know we have access to more than 16 million digital colours? Meanwhile modern chemistry can produce pigments for every hue imaginable. If you love to listen to a new podcast while you do a spot of weekend cleaning, we have a bright new addition to your queue: The National Gallery’s Stories in Colour podcast, which is back for a second series. Exploring the hidden histories woven into colour from antiquity to the present day, it’s a truly enlightening listen. Series 2’s first episode delves into synesthesia, while episode 2 is all about ultramarine – a pigment that was once more expensive than gold. Coming up in series 2, we can expect conversations about lurid oranges and yellows, 19th century mauve madness, forgotten women and more. And if you’re a new listener, delve into the archive: there are discussions about snails, rainbows, toxic greens, and a whopping three-part miniseries about gold’s role throughout history. New episodes every Wednesday.
EAT & DRINK
Try A Knepp BBQ Box
Rather than heading down to Sainsbury’s for your BBQ supplies, why not try one of the new Wild Range boxes from rewilding estate Knepp? Inside you’ll get a generous helping of pork sausages, pure beef burgers, marinated chicken wings, venison steaks and more, with options for small, medium or large boxes depending on the size of your group. To achieve the perfect smoky flavour, chef Sofian Msetfi (executive chef at Ormer Mayfair by Sofian) recommends adding wood to your BBQ – ‘But be careful not to overdo it as you don’t want an acrid taste,’ he says. ‘Try adding it slowly to let the flavour build gradually.’ Adding some veggies into the mix? ‘Don’t oil vegetables you’re grilling, as burnt oil will overpower the vegetables leaving an unpleasant aftertaste,’ chef Theo Randall tells us. ‘The best way is to make sure your BBQ is the right temperature and grill the vegetables dry, then once cooked place them on a wire rack and marinate in some good olive oil, fresh lemon and herbs. Grill slowly too, so that any fat from meat doesn’t catch fire – a good BBQ should be glowing, not flaming.’ Find more BBQ tips here.
Try The Drink Of The Summer
Looking for a cocktail to mix up at home? Swap margs for caipirinhas. ‘The margarita has been king for the last few years,’ says drinks expert and author Zoe Burgess. ‘If you’ve been drinking them for that long, a) I don’t know how you still have the stomach for that – the acidity! – and b) you’re probably looking for your next upper drink. If I were to call it now, the caipirinha stands to be the drink of the summer. More bars are running caipirinhas; they’re exotic, visually interesting, and not crazy intense in alcohol.’ For a classic Brazilian caipirinha, muddle one lime with 2-3 teaspoons of sugar in a tumbler, then fill the glass with this, crushed ice and 50-60ml of cachaça. ‘But you can use any seasonal fruits,’ adds the expert, ‘I did one for Decimo at the Standard which uses blackberry with a cinnamon spice syrup.’
READ
The Typing Lady & Other Fictions by Ruth Ozeki
The Typing Lady & Other Fictions is a dazzling collection of short stories by Ruth Ozeki, a filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest who lives in Massachusetts. As Ozeki tells C&TH, ‘I don’t write books to find myself, because I’m not convinced there is a self to be found. But I do write books to find out about myself – or rather my selves. In Buddhism, the self is a fluid construct, an ever-evolving, ever-changing story that is inextricably entangled with – and contingent upon – the causes and conditions that arise in the world. So, as a writer shaped by Buddhism, every novel or story is an exploration of these fictional selves and the interplay between them and the world.’
Relative Failures by Matthew Sturgis
This fascinating new book from Matthew Sturgis delves into the stories of three figures who lived in the shadows of their siblings in the late Victorian era. Willie Wilde was the older brother of Oscar Wilde – a man who started out with all the promise, but after breezing through school and university could never keep up a job. We also hear about the striking sister of Aubrey Beardsley, Mabel, who played a pivotal role in Aubrey’s artistic ascent before becoming a moderately successful actor herself. Then there’s Howard Sturgis – Matthew’s great-great-uncle – who watched as his brother Julian soared to the success he himself never quite achieved.
Uprising by Tahmima Anam
Inspired by the real women of Banishanta, Bangladesh, Uprising tells the story of a community of sex workers trapped on a desolate and sinking island. A cruel reality witnessed through the eyes of their children, the women have all but accepted their fate – that is until the arrival of Kusum Khan. An educated young woman from the city, she refuses to yield to the sadistic madame who controls them. Stoking the fire of resistance amongst the islanders, together they plan a rebellion that will upend their island, their world, and the very order of things as they know it.
Few and Far Between by Jan Carson
In 1958, Northern Ireland’s finance minister Terence O’Neill proposed a plan to drain the Lough Neagh archipelago and create a seventh county. Though he later tried to push the plans through when he became prime minister in 1963, the controversial scheme ultimately failed. Jan Carson’s latest novel Few and Far Between may be entirely fictional, but it was learning of the proposed draining that set the award-winning author down the rabbit hole which led her to this tale. Set in the summer of 2017, the story follows Robert-John Connolly, his wife Marion Connolly, their now grown-up children, and their neighbour Sandra, who all moved to Lough Neagh back in the 1970s to escape the worst of the Troubles. Now facing a devastating algae outbreak, it’s been decided that the only way to fix the environmental crisis is to flood the archipelago and submerge their homes. Forced to return to the mainland for the first time in 50 years, the novel questions how they will ever leave their past behind.
The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain
In July 1961 the newly-married poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes fell in love with Court Green, a tumbledown, ochre-hued thatch cottage in Devon. Abandoning London for the dream of raising their young children in the countryside, they were so close ‘you couldn’t get a piece of paper between the two of them’, according to a friend. Tragically, Ted walked out just over a year later, and Sylvia ended her life soon after. But this novel by Helen Bain covers the brief idyll when Sylvia kept hens and bees, planted vegetables, gathered daffodils and painted vintage furniture with hearts and flowers. Bain brings Sylvia to life with extraordinary skill, voicing each chapter from the perspective of a different villager to conjure this tall, confident, demanding, courageous and vulnerable American, as she tries to fit into rural English life. It’s exquisitely written.
Into The Wreck by Susannah Dickey
The third novel from Derry-born Tennis Lessons author, Susannah Dickey, Into The Wreck poses the question: how do you mourn someone you never really knew? Centred around the death of the family’s gentle but distant patriarch, this novel is told from five perspectives: that of his children Anna, Gemma and Matthew, his wife Yvonne, and her sister Amy. Reunited with their mother for the first time in a long time, the siblings must balance their everyday concerns against the looming spectre of their father’s recent death. Newly sex-obsessed Gemma needs to work out what she wants from life; Anna has to solve the issue of her not-quite-exclusive boyfriend, and aunt Amy is forced to confront her past – all while Yvonne attempts to pull off the perfect, post-funeral family dinner. Worrying at the knotty complexities of their fraying bonds, this book promises an insightful exploration of family dynamics punctuated with Dickey’s trademark wit and empathy.
