Sarah Carson

Markle is clearly able to bond and connect with people – and there’s no doubt about her hosting capabilities – so had these been the focus this could have made a very good food programme. But they are outweighed by the focus on aspirational, good living that is otherwise so parodically behind the times it actually features a scene of Markle eating avocado toast.

This might have been formulaic, but proved no amount of time away from music or showbiz can dim the light and forced of one of this generation’s greatest entertainers.

In the end, this special film felt magical – and just the right side of sentimental, giving us a sense of a story that was era-defining for fans and life-defining for its cast. Thrillingly, it managed to transport me to my childhood and to that same sense of joy and jealousy I had at 10, wishing I could be Hermione myself.

Even if it lacks the sophistication of Stranger Things or the bite of Euphoria, Cruel Summer does provide interesting observations about the ways young lives are warped by trauma, and is a story that, while it lasts – like those long hot summer months of our teenage pasts – feels suffocating, confusing, hysterically dramatic, and compulsive.

It is probably distasteful to suggest that a series about the desperate patrons of a wellbeing retreat has lost the plot. In this case I am not sure it had one in the first place.