An exploration of the financial affairs of Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle. Plus, a shameful and seldom-told story from the aftermath of the second world war. Here’s what to watch tonight

8.30pm, Channel 5
The Sussex Squad may have largely disappeared from British public life, but they still seem to arouse tabloid fury. Hence, this unnecessary documentary on the exiled couple’s financial affairs. The sources of their wealth don’t seem too mysterious: inheritance, a massive Netflix deal and a payout from the publishers representing the Sun newspaper won’t have hurt. But clearly it’s time for another stir of the pot. Phil Harrison

Veteran composer’s work is everywhere, but generation who grew up admiring him say he has never been out of touch

When Andrew Lloyd Webber walked on stage to collect the Tony award for best musical revival for Sunset Boulevard, it was the first time in 30 years he had been recognised by the American Theatre Wing.

The Jamie Lloyd-directed revival was the star of the show at American theatre’s big night last Sunday with its three wins signifying a return to prominence for the veteran composer.

Posy Sterling stars in an impassioned film about a mother trying to get her children back, while two former prisoners of Assad recall their time in hell. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Drugs, gun-runners, fridge-freezer maintenance … Netflix’s look at the wild life of the one-time Toronto mayor Rob Ford – and the lessons it tries to learn about our current politics – is gripping viewing

Canadians make bad decisions too. For proof, see this schadenfreude-fuelled documentary about Rob Ford , the bellicose former conservative mayor of Toronto. Ford’s rolling scandals in office include public drunkenness, smoking crack with gun-runners, and lying about everything. Talking heads in the documentary, sensitively titled Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem (Netflix, from Tuesday 17 June), remember him as “an everyman … without a shred of credibility … who turned city hall into a circus”. That seems unfair. Circuses aren’t that bad, and I refuse to believe every man smokes crack cocaine.

Most documentaries wring every ounce of lurid detail from their subjects. This guy has more chaos than fits inside 49 minutes. We do get thrillingly grainy footage of him twirling his crack pipe, slurring first-degree murder threats with Mortal Kombat-levels of specificity, and making bizarre rants in Jamaican patois, against what or whom I’m not sure. First-hand sources are film-maker’s gold, and Ford is happy enough to spend his lowest points around people who video everything. These people never have good phones though, do they?

The kids’ animation gets a sprightly live-action remake, and rock’s angriest elder statesman returns with a new album and backing band

How to Train Your Dragon
Out now
This live-action remake was shot by Bill Pope, the cinematographer behind films as diverse as Clueless, The Matrix and Spider-Man 3, with puppets used on set to give the actors something to work with before painting in the CGI. Starring Mason Thames, Gerard Butler and Nick Frost.

In pop, which equates genius with innovation, recent artists have not pioneered new forms like those from the 60s. Has the digital age sidelined invention and promoted the derivative for ever?

By all accounts, Brian Wilson was a genius. His fellow greats Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney both used the word in their tributes to the creative force behind the Beach Boys, who died this week aged 82. So did John Cale, Mick Fleetwood and Elton John. And so did Wilson’s bandmates, who wrote in a joint statement: “The world mourns a genius today.”

You may imagine Wilson gradually accrued such a vaunted standing. Artistic legacy is largely dependent on the longevity of mass appeal, and the fact that the Beach Boys’ opus Pet Sounds remains one of the most celebrated and beloved records of all time almost 60 years since its release is proof enough of his incredible talent.

Band’s ‘on the edge of kitsch’ aesthetic is still relevant three decades later as young people focus on vintage clothing

Thirty years ago this month Pulp played the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury and took their reputation to another level. If part of this was due to a storming set taking in their new hit Common People, debuts for their future hits Mis-Shapes and Disco 2000, and the star power of singer Jarvis Cocker, it was also down to their look.

There was Steve Mackay, bass guitarist, in a fitted shirt and kipper tie, Russell Senior on violin in a blue safari shirt, keyboardist Candida Doyle in sequins and – of course – Cocker, in his now signature secondhand 70s tailoring.

The artist and author’s hit book had so much in common with her own life that even her friends forgot it wasn’t real. How did this revolutionary portrayal of midlife desire come to inspire a generation of women?

When Miranda July’s All Fours was published in May last year, it triggered what felt like both a spontaneous resistance movement and the sort of mania last experienced when the final Twilight book dropped, except this time for women in midlife rather than teenage girls. Two friends separately brought it to my house, like contraband dropped out of a biplane. Book groups hastily convened, strategically timed for when the men were out of the picture.

The story opens with a 45-year-old woman about to take a road trip, a break from her husband and child and general domestic noise. She’s intending to drive from LA to New York, but is derailed in the first half hour by a young guy, Davey, in a car hire place, to whom she is passionately attracted. The next several weeks pass in a lust so intense, so overpowering, so lusciously drawn, it’s like a cross between ayahuasca and encephalitis. The narrator is subsumed by her obsession, and disappears her normal life. The road trip is a bust from the start, but the effort of breaking the spell and going home looks, for a long time, like way too much for the narrator, and when she finally does, to borrow from Leonard Cohen (perhaps describing a similar situation), she’s somebody’s mother but nobody’s wife.

The mob character’s survival was dependent on her achieving a standard of femininity – and as a trans woman, I empathise. When her body fell short, her protection disappeared

I have never been excited about fancy dress, but when I received the invitation to a Sopranos-themed party a couple of months ago, I knew immediately who I wanted to go as: Adriana La Cerva. As a transgender woman, I empathised deeply with Adriana. I loved her wit, naivety, garish glamour and scandalous moments – the same reason I admire so many of the women in my trans community. Just look to Hunter Schafer or Alex Consani if you want a masterclass in all the above.

Some of Adriana’s one-liners – “If you think I’m gonna blow this guy for your sick purposes, you are sadly mistaken” – contain the sort of lewd, campy bravado of a ballroom queen. This is not the aspiration of gender transition, of course. But it does approximate to some of the ways trans women respond to their exclusion by a culture that expects women to be respectable, polite and discreet about their sexualities.