initial you wait 35 days for an initial benefit payment and routinely it's been an extra three weeks, that the average. presumably for some people it's been a lot more than three weeks. that's an enormously long time, seven or eight weeks to wait for money. rob, this goes back a long way, iain duncan smith, the work and pensions secretary, brought it in. from the start people said it wouldn't work but something had to change. the old system didn't work very well either. without a doubt in theory it was a good idea at the heart of universal credit, no doubt, the idea was it would make work pay by removing some of the benefit traps that existed in the old system so traps that existed in the old system so if you took on work, it wasn't worth working because the extra money you would be earning would be so money you would be earning would be so little compared to staying on benefits. also to make the system more streamlined. labour looked at this before the coalition came to power in 2010 and shied away from it because they feared it could be too complicated and could go wrong, but

iain duncan smith was determined to pursue it but eight years later it still only reaches a minority and a significant number of that minority, as the report says, is suffering huge problems. it is behind the explosion of food banks in the last few years, or at least is one of the reasons. it's not meant to be rolled out fully for four years and that's evenif out fully for four years and that's even if it is smooth from now on, so over a decade to have this system. lots of the money has been taken out, so the idea of making work pay isn't the reality any more so lots of people are thinking, was it worth it? probably too late to stop. we must stop ourselves. thank you very much indeed. that's it for the papers tonight. don't forget you can see the front pages of the papers online on the bbc news website. it's all there for you seven days a week at bbc.co.uk/papers. if you miss the programme any evening you can watch it later on bbc iplayer. thank you, natalie and rob. coming up next, it's the film review. goodbye.

hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases, maybe some singing, here's mark kermode. you cannot fail to notice that out this week is mamma mia! here we go again. i know you're a huge abba fan. i can't wait to discuss this with you. also out this week, hotel artemis, a future noir thriller withjodie foster. and the receptionist, a low—budget but brave film from jenny lu. here we go again! so, now, first question, where do you stand on the first mamma mia!? yeah, you see, massive abba fan of more than a0 years standing, really didn't think the first one was very good.

0k, see, the thing is, i watched the first one and i thought, "this isn't very good, this isn't very good, this isn't very good. oh, good heavens, i'm completely going with it!" i was completely... were there tears? yes, there was tears! and so, ten years later, i thought they can't possibly repeat this phenomenon because it was one of those things, it really questioned my entire ideas of good and bad, and whether or not there was any role for critics in the world! so now, a decade after the original, we have a prequel—sequel hybrid. yes, structurally, it's godfather ii! and so back in 1979, lilyjames is the young donna. she graduates from oxford and she goes off on the holiday that's the beginning of all the trouble. in the present day, her daughter, amanda seyfried, is opening the newly refurbished hotel bella donna, and she is calling around some old friends because history is repeating itself. see what i did there?! i see where it's going! here's a clip. # look into his angel eyes, one look and you're hypnotised. # he'll take your heart and you must pay the price.

# look into his angel eyes, you'll think you're in paradise. # and one day you'll find out he wears a disguise... # don't look too deep into those angel eyes. # oh, no, no, no.# i don't think it's camp enough! 0k, here's what i feel. firstly, julie walters, in terms of physical comedy... on a technical level, 0k, so i think this is slicker than the original. this is directed by 01 parker — the original was phyllida lloyd. this has sort of slightly smoother camera moves. there are slightly better choreographed dance sequences. because it's happening in split time and temporal structures, we get these scenes which mirror each other, so from the point of view of construction of a film, it's really good. we have all the old cast back again and some new cast members playing the old cast in their younger incarnations.

they're a very, very likeable cast. i mean, lilyjames could charm the birds out of the trees. none of that would matter if the thing didn't have any emotional punch, and it did. about 10—15 minutes in, the sequence where they did i kissed the teacher, i started having just a little cry. just a little quiet cry. and then when pierce brosnan took a very gentle run at a song... because, pierce, god bless him... bless him, he can't sing, can he? we are allowed to say that. you can't sing, you can't dance, but you can still have the time of your life! so then — so here's the big question, what's the greatest abba song ever recorded 7 dancing queen! no, wrong. no? i'm right! no, you're not. the greatest abba song ever recorded is my love, my life from arrival. oh, that's beautiful, but that's a heartbreaker. and the drama moves towards it. and i promise you when my love, my life happens, and i won't spoil the moment it happened, i was in floods of tears. knowing the song, i can imagine. i was sobbing, i was... i was actually having to stop myself from making a noise in the screening because i thought all these other people would think, "what on earth is he doing?"

i laughed, i smiled, i enjoyed it, i loved it to pieces! and the thing you always think about a film is "is there any way in which this film could have been better?" well, i suppose having dwayne ‘the rock'johnson in it might‘ve, but other than that, it could not possibly have been improved. i thought it was absolutely fabulous. i cannot wait to go and see it again. it topped the original. it sent me out with a... there's the thing, you see — you're saying that a sequel is better than the original. how often does that happen? i'm saying that in the case of both the sequel and the original, i lost all sense of critical faculty and ijust felt myself going with it. and, i mean, were i a braver man, i would've been dancing in the aisles. it was — and particularly, as things are at the moment, it's the film that you really need. and i promise you, if you can get through my love, my life without floods of tears, then you're dead to me. it's kind of that and mary poppins at the moment. those are the two touchdowns. you will love it. well, i can tell that i will. and i didn't like the first one

because i felt there were too many people in it who couldn't sing, and that really annoyed me. this is better. well, there are still some people who can't sing. but it's fine, because when they do the songs that matter, they can sing. someone just said to me that we can't talk about this film for the whole programme, which is very disappointing, because we could. i actually feel that we can! no, we could, but we have to move on to very, very, very different matters. 0k, hotel artemis, which is this future noir dystopian thriller. jodie foster runs this hotel — this is ten years in the future, los angeles, there are riots — and she runs this hotel that basically takes in outlaws and bandits and she patches them up after they've got wounded. and the cast includesjeff goldblum, zachary quinto, sterling k brown and, of course, jodie foster. i thought it was kind of disposable fun. i'm saying that after mamma mia that this is the disposable fun thing. it's quite slickly done. it has a cartoonish feel to it. it's written and directed by drew pearce. there are some quite stylishly mounted sort of violent set pieces which are all, as i said, done in a very cartoonish way. it doesn't have much emotional clout, except for the fact at the centre of it you do have jodie foster playing this character

who has a darkness in her past, which she manages to convey. there's also a brilliant comic turn by dave bautista, who makes the most of a recurring joke. you know, he's a man mountain of a guy but he's a medical orderly, and he keeps showing everyone his badge to demonstrate that he is actually a medical orderly and they must take him seriously. it's kind of ok, it's not great — it's not mamma mia! here we go again, let's be honest, but it's kind of 0k! and a totally different turn for the third film, which i haven't seen but by everything i've read is really emotional in a very different way. it is, it's very tough. it's a drama written and directed byjenny lu. it's a taiwanese graduate who can't find work, ends up taking a job in an illegal massage parlour. here's a clip. she's so nice, thank you. see, i told you! bye! bye — bye. i'll be back! come again soon. thank you so much, bye—bye. bye! bye — bye!

so you can see from that, it's a resolutely unglamorous and actually very grim film. the writer was inspired to write it after a true story of somebody that she knew who was working somewhere and, you know, had her dreams crushed and ended up committing suicide. what i like about this film is that it feels very real. it is very gritty. it's done with a lot of heart and a lot of integrity. the way the film got made was that the script was written and the script then won a prize and they needed funding so they went to crowd funding. so it's very hard to get a film made. when you think about things like hope dickson leach taking ten years to get the levelling made. yes, terrific. and this is how it works. my feeling about this film is it's tough. there's no question about it, it's a tough watch, it is a bleak story, although there's hope. there's also a real sense of companionship. you hear these women's voices and you get to know them and i think that comes across well.

but i think more importantly, it's a feature that makes me want to see more from this writer—director because i think it's done, as i said, with integrity and heart. it's a very, very small budget film. you'll have to seek it out. i mean, you know, mamma mia will be on every single screen, hotel artemis will be one of those. you will have to seek out the receptionist, but it is worth it. i would say again, it is a tough watch. it is a bleak film but it does have hope, and it does have heart. and, more importantly, it does have integrity. all good qualities. and best out — leave no trace... last time i'm going to say this, leave no trace is so far the best film i've seen this year. i absolutely love it. directed by debra granik, who made winter's bone, which was so great. it's the story of a father and daughter living off the grid in the forest outside portland. they get found by the authorities. and it does not put a foot wrong. there's just nothing that this film gets wrong. there's never a moment when the characters stand and explain themselves to each other. there's never a moment when characters have one of those conversations that you know was written by the scriptwriter to tell you what's going on. it's all to do with the gestures and the emotion. again, you'll love it, trust me. i do trust you.

forgive me, i'm a bad person — the only reason i haven't seen it is because the weather has been so utterly beautiful. i couldn't face going to sit in a cinema. that doesn't make you a bad person! i know that may be a controversial statement, but... the summer blockbuster was was built on air—conditioned cinemas. but i'm very excited to see it as soon as we get some rain, right? yes. and a dvd? filmworker. this is a dvd about leon vitali, who was a very, very promising actor. worked with stanley kubrick, realised that, to him, stanley kubrick was a genius, and decided to dedicate his whole life to working for stanley kubrick in every possible way. it's a really interesting film because it's about what does it mean if you decide that somebody else is a great artist and you are going to basically sacrifice everything that you have to facilitate their art? and i think he's a kind of an unsung hero. i thought it was a really interesting documentary. i'm not the world's biggest kubrick fan. i think kubrick was great at times. i could live without eyes wide shut. but i really do think this — it's a portrait of somebody who is in love with the movies and in love with the moviemaker and decides to dedicate themself to making that art happen, and it's very inspiring.

mmm, fascinating. did he ever see his children? that's what you wonder. it's an extraordinary story. it is, it really is. thank you very much. go and see mamma mia! that's the weekend sorted, isn't it? just a reminder before you go, you can find all the film news and reviews on the bbc online, bbc.co.uk/markkermode. and all our previous programmes are on the iplayer, of course. enjoy your weekend of cinema—going! i've still got angel eyes going round and round in my head! have a good week! wa nt to want to have a guess what the weather is doing this week? well, you guessed it. it is going to be dry and it is going to be hot, but not everywhere, and in fact not even com pletely not everywhere, and in fact not even completely dry because there might be one or two spits and spots of

rain, already the night and into tomorrow, in northern ireland and scotland. look at this very thin weather front. you scotland. look at this very thin weatherfront. you really have scotland. look at this very thin weather front. you really have to squint to see the rain getting it to the western isles of scotland and northern ireland, maybe a couple of light showers ahead of it. the vast majority of the country seeing dry and very warm. 19 in merseyside, an exceptionally warm and muggy night out there. tomorrow a few dribs and drabs of rain in the north—west here. most of us missing the rainfall, and to the south of that it is going to be very hot. temperatures on monday in the south—east could peak at 32 celsius. heating that 90 fahrenheit mark, and it is going to be 30 degrees or more in the south over the coming days. look at that, wednesday, midweek, will probably hit 33 degrees this week, and it is going to be 30 degrees or more... this is newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore.

the headlines: rescuing the rescuers. more than 100 white helmet volunteers and their families are evacuated from the fighting in syria. gunmen in south africa shoot dead 11 taxi drivers, who were ambushed on their way back from a funeral. i'm kasia madera in london. also coming up in the programme: with just days to go before parliamentary elections in pakistan, many women still aren't registered and may not be allowed to vote. we speak to the female candidate trying to change that. and inside north korea, we'll hear from an american student who gained very rare access to the secretive state.