Reviews
Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, ITV / Homeland, Series 5 FinaleMonday, 28 December 2015
Earlier this year, Sky Living showed The Enfield Haunting, a tale of eerie events in a 1970s council house. One of its stars was Timothy Spall, playing a paranormal researcher. Maybe he had a premonition that his son Rafe would carry on the family's... Read more... |
Best (and Worst) of 2015: FilmMonday, 28 December 2015
The autumn cinema schedules of 2015 were assailed by the double whammy of Spectre and The Force Awakens– at times making it hard to find a screen showing anything else. Yet you’ll see that neither that latest instalment in the Bond... Read more... |
Catherine Tate's Nan, BBC OneMonday, 28 December 2015
Everyone knows a Nan – whether their own grandmother, someone else's, or maybe an elderly woman you see on the bus rudely (but rightly) telling youngsters they shouldn't be sitting when she has to stand. My grandmothers were nothing like the foul-... Read more... |
Dickensian, BBC OneSunday, 27 December 2015
There are around 800 pages in a Dickensian doorstopper and it has been said around 800 times that if Dickens were working today he would be a show runner on a soap. Finally it has come to pass. Andrew Davies attempted something similar with his... Read more... |
Best of 2015: Reissue CDsSunday, 27 December 2015
Revealing a new story which completely rewrites an existing one is not easy in the world of reissues. With so much already known, and with pop and rock history constantly being revisited, it’s always surprising when a fresh tale is told. And it’s... Read more... |
Downton Abbey – The Finale, ITVSaturday, 26 December 2015
On Monday ITV showed BAFTA Celebrates Downton Abbey, in which a massed gathering of cast and crew plus a few celebrity guests toasted Downton's five-year stampede to global acclaim. Its creator Julian Fellowes waddled onstage and told an anecdote... Read more... |
Best of 2015: Classical ConcertsSaturday, 26 December 2015
The musical future looks bright indeed, at least from my perspective. There are more classical concerts than ever going on across the UK on most days of the year, so who can know with any authority what might have been missed? Yet each of... Read more... |
In the Heart of the SeaSaturday, 26 December 2015
A host of pictorially arresting, even painterly images can't make a satisfying whole out of In the Heart of the Sea, Ron Howard's film that doesn't dig very deep, its penetrating title notwitstanding. Howard has always been drawn to unusual realms,... Read more... |
Best of 2015: GamesSaturday, 26 December 2015
When a discussion about ‘What was the best game of 2015?" stretches through a whole evening in the pub you know that: (a) you need to stop socialising with games journalists, and (b) 2015 has been a corker of a year in videogames.Crystal balls make... Read more... |
Best of 2015: Classical CDsSaturday, 26 December 2015
Does classical music still matter? Of course it does – sample any one of these ten discs and discover why. All of them are available as CDs as well as downloads – the classical CD shop may be almost extinct, but the physical product... Read more... |
We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story, BBC TwoWednesday, 23 December 2015
The sclerotic culture of dithering that afflicts the higher-ups at the BBC has been mercilessly exposed in W1A. It turns out that fear of failure was always a managerial thing at the corporation. How else did Dad’s Army have such a bumpy ride to... Read more... |
Christmas Oratorio, AAM, Egarr, BarbicanWednesday, 23 December 2015
Relatively recent tweaks to the abundant London concert scene have resulted in top-end events right up to Christmas. We have in part to thank the seasonal festival at St John’s Smith Square, postponing the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s... Read more... |
