Nordic noir
The Control Room, BBC One review - twisty thriller set in an ultra-noir GlasgowTuesday, 19 July 2022
The BBC publicity department doesn’t want reviewers to reveal too much about this three-parter in advance, so the description of its content here may seem skimpy. If you watch this mini-series, you will sort of understand why – its plot relies on... Read more... |
Album: Jenny Hval - Classic ObjectsThursday, 10 March 2022
Norwegian artist Jenny Hval is a novelist as well as a singer-songwriter, and her new album certainly has a literary approach to music making.Classic Objects is made of up little stories set to music - standalone units of narrative outside of the... Read more... |
Jenny Hval: Girls Against God review - a sticky dance through space and timeWednesday, 21 October 2020
Jenny Hval’s Girls Against God covers every angsty young woman’s favourite subjects. Witchcraft, heavy metal, viscera, and hatred. It’s a book in the grand tradition of Kathy Acker and women surrealists everywhere, dancing through space and... Read more... |
The Adulterer, Channel 4 review - atmospheric, addictive and bingeworthyMonday, 10 August 2020
It has taken a good half decade for the Dutch series Overspel (The Adulterer) to make it on to TV screens in the UK. Its 32 episodes were made in 2011-2015, but the third and final series is only now being broadcast on Channel 4’s Walter Presents.... Read more... |
Screenwriter Adam Price on 'Ride Upon the Storm' - 'If we discuss faith, we will possibly not kill each other'Saturday, 26 January 2019
Apparently in Denmark they pronounce screenwriter Adam Price’s surname as “Preece”, but its English-looking spelling stems from the fact that his ancestors moved from London to Denmark in the 18th century. He came storming back into the British... Read more... |
The Girl in the Spider's Web review - Claire Foy leathers upThursday, 22 November 2018
The enthronement of Claire Foy has been quite a spectacle. Perhaps some of Her Majesty’s mystique has rubbed off, as she is now entering that territory known to few young actors, where you’ll happily pay to see her in anything. Should that policy... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, BBC One review - this summer's watercooler dramaFriday, 13 July 2018
How well do you know the person you love? Are they someone completely different when you’re not around? This is the central question Eve Myles (main picture) has to answer in the BBC’s latest mystery drama. Faced with the sudden disappearance of her... Read more... |
The Bridge, BBC Two, series 4 review - Scandi saga is darker than everSaturday, 12 May 2018
In the 1990s, which brought us Morse, Fitz and Jane Tennison, an idea took root that all television detectives must be mavericks. They needed to be moody, dysfunctional, addictive, a bit of an unsolved riddle. These British sleuths were all... Read more... |
Marcella, Series 2, ITV review - more twisted tales of detectionTuesday, 27 February 2018
Marcella’s writer Hans Rosenfeldt was the creator of Scandi classic TV drama The Bridge, the one that made detectives with emotional disorders the flavour du jour, but you do have to wonder what kind of police force would continue to employ DS... Read more... |
Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders, More4 review - Swedish sleuth is a cold caseSaturday, 20 January 2018
Sara Lund and Saga Norén have a lot to answer for. Their adventures in the murk of murder as they grapple with their own dysfunctional psychology entranced audiences who don’t speak a scrap of Danish or Swedish. The search has since gone on for... Read more... |
Before We Die, Channel 4 review - underwhelming and unengaging Scandi noirWednesday, 17 January 2018
The new import is the latest procedural from Scandinavia, this time focusing on Stockholm’s biker gangs. The first episode aired Tuesday night, with the rest of the series available on All4 now. In the age of the boxset binge, this availability is... Read more... |
The Snowman review - Michael Fassbender can't save Harry HoleThursday, 12 October 2017
The crime novels of Jo Nesbø are rampaging Nordic psycho-operas. The author's Oslo detective Harry Hole is a lofty alcoholic who takes an outrageous pummelling in his pursuit of deranged serial killers. His many adventures fill the crime shelves in... Read more... |
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