Reviews
Line of Duty, Series 6, BBC One review - fasten your seatbelts, it's backMonday, 22 March 2021
Jed Mercurio’s tangly police corruption thriller Line of Duty has become one of the jewels in the BBC’s drama crown, and this sixth (and possibly last) series has finally arrived on BBC One after a steadily growing crescendo of pre-publicity. Can it... Read more... |
Comedy podcasts round-up 4: plus a vodcast and some retro audioMonday, 22 March 2021
Fawlty Towers: For the RecordA special, limited-edition vinyl release of the entire comedy series written by John Cleese and Connie Booth to celebrate the BBC sitcom's 40th anniversary. The 12 episodes offer a masterclass in comedy writing and... Read more... |
My Father and Me, BBC Two review - Nick Broomfield's moving voyage around his familySunday, 21 March 2021
Nick Broomfield made his first film 50 years ago, and his career over those five decades (and some three dozen works) has been as distinctive, and distinguished as that of any British documentary maker. It has ranged from early films on British... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Linda Smith - Till Another Time 1988-1996Sunday, 21 March 2021
“I See Your Face” opens with a short burst of Phil Spector-ish tambourine rattling. The sort of thing also employed by the early Jesus & Mary Chain. Then, a cascading folk-rock guitar paves the way for a disembodied voice singing over a spooky... Read more... |
Drive to Survive, Season 3, Netflix review - the agony and the ecstasy of the 2020 F1 campaignSaturday, 20 March 2021
The 2020 Formula One season was all set to start in Australia last March when it was derailed by the Covid emergency. The F1 organisers insisted that they’d get the racing back on track somehow, and what sounded like foolhardy bravado was justified... Read more... |
Album: Frida Hyvönen - Dream Of IndependenceSaturday, 20 March 2021
Track two on Dream Of Independence, the new album from Sweden’s Frida Hyvönen, is titled “A Funeral in Banbridge”. An account of attending a funeral in, indeed, Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, it’s bright, melodically jaunty, piano-... Read more... |
Amber and Me review - sensitive documentary about twin girls, one with Down SyndromeFriday, 19 March 2021
This heartfelt documentary follows twin girls who are just starting primary school. We first meet Amber struggling to pop her head through her shirt, helped by her sister Olivia. Amber has Down Syndrome and everything is just that bit harder... Read more... |
Isata Kanneh-Mason, Hallé, Elder online review - triumphant film returnFriday, 19 March 2021
Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé are back in the Bridgewater Hall for the first programme in the second tranche of the orchestra’s digital Winter Season – filming that had to be postponed from its original planned date but is triumphantly achieved now.... Read more... |
Minari review - a Korean family searches for the American dreamThursday, 18 March 2021
“David, don’t run,” is the refrain that runs through the first scenes of Lee Isaac Chung’s affecting, autobiographical Minari, acclaimed at Sundance, winner of a Golden Globe for best foreign language film (it’s mainly in Korean) and nominated for... Read more... |
The One, Netflix review - the downside of scientific matchmakingThursday, 18 March 2021
Readers of John Marrs’s 2017 novel The One should probably look away now, since Netflix’s dramatisation of the story bears scant resemblance to the book. The basic premise – that a corporation has invented a method of DNA testing which can match... Read more... |
Prix Pictet: Confinement review - a year in photographsThursday, 18 March 2021
Sustainability and the environment are watchwords for the Prix Pictet, the international photography prize now in its ninth cycle. Since its launch in 2008, it has responded to the state of the world with urgency and compassion, its shortlists all... Read more... |
The Band Plays On, Sheffield Theatres online review – to Sheffield with loveThursday, 18 March 2021
All theatre is local — if you can’t get to where a show is playing you can’t see it. That is, until a pandemic closes all theatres and forces their shows to go online. The latest offering from Sheffield Theatres, now streaming to your home, is local... Read more... |
