BBC Four
Kieron Tyler
“Baker Street” and “Stuck in the Middle With You” will live forever. Once heard, each is never forgotten. Both are perfect. Both were written and sung by Gerry Rafferty, the subject of Right Down the Line, an affectionate David Tennant-narrated tribute to this stubborn Scotsman, who died in January last year. The story was told with warmth and his songwriting celebrated, but evidence for Rafferty’s troubled nature was never far.“Baker Street” flew into the charts in early 1978 as punk was supposed to be wiping the singer-songwriter off the face of the earth. Gerry Rafferty’s beard, the single Read more ...
josh.spero
The most finely judged thing about Lowdown on BBC Four is how it takes the tradition of broad Australian humour and makes it broad enough to cover the Outback without causing a breach in laughter or taste. The taste in this comedy of hacks is, of course, bad, but that's what makes it so good. The bogan element in Australian culture - it's their equivalent of the hick - is turned into the comedy of the unspeakable, and is always very, very funny.Now, I'm not the first man to laugh about anal fissures - for yucks it's somewhere up there with lacemaking and Elizabethan constitutional history - Read more ...
fisun.guner
Daniel McGowan is a convicted terrorist. As a former leading member of the Earth Liberation Front, listed as the FBI’s number one domestic terrorist organisation, the thirtysomething New Yorker with a gentle, rather guileless demeanour was convicted in 2007 on multiple counts of arson and conspiracy. No one was killed during these attacks and no one has ever been killed or physically injured in the course of any ELF action. But that’s not to say we were meant to feel entirely sympathetic to McGowan or, indeed, to the ELF .This excellent film, by Sam Cullman and Marshall Curry, was balanced, Read more ...
ash.smyth
Watching Bullets, Boots and Bandages last night, I found myself recalling a tutor from my Master’s year whose favourite hobby was lampooning the “sloppy thinking” of other noted academics. His personal bête noire, he more than once informed us, had many years ago written a book averring that leadership was the most important thing in war; then, later, another saying that actually technology was the key; after which came a volume on the paramount importance of strategy; and then one concluding that wars were in fact won and lost over logistics.Saul David agrees with the last bit, at least. “ Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Walking into a Wickes DIY superstore in Cricklewood, north London, Peter Capaldi is overwhelmed. The history there isn’t obvious as shoppers scurry about. But he knows it’s the site of Cricklewood Studios, the engine of British cinema that churned out classics like Clog Capers of 1932, the horror benchmark Dr Worm and the hilarious Thumbs up Matron. The end came in the 1980s with Terry Gilliam’s Professor Hypochondria’s Magical Odyssey and the wrecking ball. Wickes rose from the rubble.Cricklewood never had the cachet of Pinewood or Elstree. Its films weren’t as lauded as those of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Before The Beatles touched down there in 1964, British pop was barely a concern for America. The first in this three-part series took The Beatles arrival as the year zero for British pop’s conquering of America. An entertaining canter through an over-familiar slice of pop history, Go West was enlivened by some top-drawer talking heads including Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page. No Rolling Stones though.But it was great to see members of The Animals, Hollies, Searchers and Zombies given the chance to reminisce. American context came from veteran DJ Larry Kane, New York Doll Syl Sylvain, Jackie Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Beatles’s arrival on US TV screens in February 1964 is usually recognised as the beginning of the British Invasion of America. But this drama, focusing on chippy, upstart photographer David Bailey, his relationship with his chosen model Jean Shrimpton and their first shoot in Manhattan, floated the idea that their US visit in January 1962 was as pivotal as The Fabs’s debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. We'll Take Manhattan was significant for featuring Karen Gillan, now on her last lap in Doctor Who, in her first starring vehicle. The sense behind casting her was clear. Gillan Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
As the series ended, it remained at great pains to repeatedly point out that this was the story of the British musical, its post-War success and how Oliver and Jesus Christ Superstar conquered Broadway. Yet it was hard not to sigh as episode three finished with Disney and Sir Cameron Mackintosh cosying up to stage Mary Poppins, which Mackintosh had the rights to. Universal hit Britain’s stages with Wicked, as DreamWorks has with Shrek The Musical. The story of the British musical concluded with corporate America moving in.It’s not hard to see the interest - British musicals are worth £1.5 Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
theartsdesk’s Howard Male pointed out that The Slap was overshadowed by BBC Four’s concurrent screening of The Killing. The arrival of the series on DVD brings an opportunity to brush off the lint that might have stuck to it and consider whether it will have a staying power. Will it become a box-set essential?The Slap has divided opinion, especially on the theartsdesk. Reviewing the series after the final episode Howard Male summed up, saying “the fast, sharp script, naturalistic performances and slick but unobtrusive direction has made each episode as worthy of analysis and as nuanced Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Knitwear fetishists won’t be as thrilled with Borgen as they were with The Killing, but based on the first two episodes of the Danish political drama, Birgitte Nyborg Christensen is a match for Sarah Lund. She’s as likely to stray from what she ought to be doing as Lund and just as adept as spotting what no else can see.On live TV, days before the parliamentary election, party leader Nyborg horrifies her spin doctor by reacting to a clip of a coalition partner’s new position on asylum seekers by instantly saying she can’t work with him. Following her convictions and being honest is what she’s Read more ...
howard.male
While the rest of the country has been busy discussing the knitwear of Denmark’s answer to DCI Jane Tennison, I found myself bereft of anyone to share my unbridled enthusiasm for this Australian adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’s novel The Slap. Even at the virtual watercooler of Facebook, only one person gave me a thumbs up when I wrote a paragraph on its excellence. Why a fairly generic murder procedural should inspire such obsessive devotion while a completely original and gripping family drama is relatively ignored is something of a mystery.But perhaps it’s because The Slap dared to Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Before the internet and the Kindle were invented, generations of Americans saw their lives refracted through the pages of Life magazine. In particular, through its photography, since writers at Life were largely relegated to supplying glorified picture captions. They were also allowed to carry the photographers' equipment.Obviously the idea of being an object of reverence appeals to photographers. Portrait and fashion snapper Rankin has long admired the work of the great Life lenspersons, and in this film he reviewed their accomplishments and tracked down some of the magazine's fabled Read more ...