TV
Tom Birchenough
He may have been lampooned in his lifetime as the man who kept a pet wasp, but Britain owes much to John Lubbock, the Victorian MP whose legislation gave the country its first bank holiday. His Ancient Monuments bill of 1882 (nicknamed the “monumentally ancient bill" for how long it took to get through Parliament) was even more far-seeing, paving the way for the Heritage movement as we know it.It would be hard to imagine Britain today without the National Trust, English Heritage and the other crusading organizations whose representatives people BBC Four’s thoughtful three-parter Heritage! The Read more ...
emma.simmonds
In one of the great US sitcoms, Seinfeld, the mantra of the show's producers was "no hugging, no learning". Well, Parks and Recreation - which may end up occupying a similarly lofty place in comedy history - takes the opposite tack. Warm and wonderfully witty with characters and relationships that actually evolve, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur's sitcom also features TV's finest comedy ensemble. This perky, award-winning comedy has taken an absolute age to reach us, considering it debuted in the US in 2009 (where the fifth season has already aired). As with other such imports, BBC Four Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Compile a list of the subjects you thought may be unsuitable for a sitcom, and it will almost certainly include a person with learning difficulties, assisted suicide and an army bomb disposal team.Well all three of those now exist – Derek and Way To Go have just finished their first series on Channel 4 and BBC Three respectively, and on the latter channel last night Bluestone 42, set in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, made its debut. And while the makers may have had a modern-day M*A*S*H in their heads, they have some way to go before reaching that comedy's heights - they don't even Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It looks as if Broadchurch will reveal itself as a "town-with-murky-secrets" story, but on the evidence of this first episode we can expect it to be done with a skilful touch and a fine eye for detail. The trigger for the action is the death of 11-year-old Danny Latimer, but writer Chris Chibnall is focusing on the effect this has on family and friends as much as on the grim event itself.Broadchurch is a small seaside town in Dorset where violent crime is largely unheard of. When Danny's body is first discovered on the beach, suicide or an accident are canvassed as possible causes. Then Read more ...
Jasper Rees
A drama that opens with the disappearance in the woods of a beautiful blonde teenage girl is going to evoke memories of Nanna Birk Larsen racing away from her murderer in The Killing. A drama set in a rural English village peopled by loamy eccentrics and sozzled toffs is likely to summon thoughts of Midsomer Murders. Put ‘em together and what have you got?Mayday is working a nightly hourlong shift across the week. This is an occasional style of scheduling that works well so long as the story grabs the viewer by the throat and refuses to slacken its hold. Five Daughters, about the murder of Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It is now part of the fixtures and fittings on British television. Its original stars, once alternative comedians, have become leathery gerontosaurs of the establishment. And yet on Comic Relief the grammar of giving has been largely immune to evolution. A star – usually a comic - goes out to Africa and reports back from a community in dire need of a basic necessity to alleviate suffering and death. They mug charmingly for the camera, make friends with the children and ask for your money.It’s a trusted method, but this year Richard Curtis has tried to shake things up a little. Rather than Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The generational time-bomb is a popular dramatic device - ITV were at it only a couple of months ago with The Poison Tree - and new five-parter Lightfields boldly sprawls itself across three separate eras (1944, 1975 and 2012). Binding it all together is the titular location, a farmhouse in Suffolk, through which the different generations of characters pass.The rapid cutting between three separate periods featuring three different casts was hardly a guarantee of intelligibility, though you could more or less gather the gist of it as it whirled along. During the wartime period, 17-year- Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's an interesting time for Sue Perkins's coming-out sitcom to debut, coming as it does a matter of weeks after the government has begun the process of introducing equal marriage in the UK. Despite it being broadcast in a country where seemingly sexual orientation is no longer an issue, it reflects a wider reality where some people still feel unable to be honest about themselves with their loved ones or, worse, fear their lives would be made hellish by living openly as a gay man or woman.That's the serious stuff dealt with. Heading Out, by contrast, is resolutely upbeat, right down to the Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
So, Death in Paradise has harrumphed its way to another series finale. DI Richard Poole (Ben Miller) was in a grumpier mood than usual by its closing episode, contending with Fidel’s distraction as he waits results of his Sergeant’s exam, and Dwayne, as ever, diverted by the laydeez.Sara Martins’s saintly (think, patience of) presence as his sidekick Camille Bordey goes on being underappreciated, though she continues treating Richard like a rare specimen to be protected from life’s vagaries. If Camille's hoping for something else, she's one hell of an optimist, even by Francophone standards. Read more ...
Laura Silverman
Stephen Poliakoff's slow-burning drama had turned into a propulsive whodunnit by this final episode, hurtling towards a resolution with panache and surprise. The five-part mini-series about a black jazz band in early 1930s high society has had the feel of an exploratory score at times. With syncopated beats and riffs decorating its unfolding narrative, the occasional scene and detail has seemed superfluous. But Poliakoff has had his reasons. By episode five, almost every character had a motive for murdering Jessie (Angel Coulby), the lead singer, or at least assisting in a cover-up.This Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
After the nightmarish vision of justice system turned spectator sport that was last week’s Black Mirror, you’d be forgiven for feeling a little disappointed that writer Charlie Brooker hadn’t ramped up the horror at the start of the final episode of this all-too-short second series. There were many adjectives one could consider throwing at Waldo, the inexplicably popular blue cartoon bear at the centre of the action, but “horrific” probably wasn’t one of them.And yet the climatic moment of this particular piece of drama was the scariest of all, not least because of its sheer plausibility. As Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
He may not be a household name, but Michael Emerson became a household face by virtue of his role as the sinister Benjamin Linus in Lost, the leader of the group called the Others on the show’s hallucinatory South Pacific island. Emerson, born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1954, was already a theatre veteran with a string of intermittent TV performances to his credit. Now his ascent became rocket-assisted as he appeared in all of Lost's six seasons except the first, winning an Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmy in 2009. Lost ended in 2010, leaving even faithful viewers bewildered by Read more ...