TV
fisun.guner
Television schedules seem not to matter much any more, since we can now watch on repeat more or less any time we choose. But it still seems strange that the BBC are airing their new five-part period drama, which is part-funded by the HBO network to the tune of £12 million, on a Friday evening in the middle of August – even though it’s turned out to be ideal weather for staying in. And Parade’s End ticks all the right boxes, too – all bar one, perhaps: it’s lovely to look at, it features a top-drawer British cast, and there’s the screenplay by Tom Stoppard.In other words it reeks of serious Read more ...
Graham Fuller
In 1979, my father stayed in a railway hotel in a Wiltshire town on the eve of a family fiftieth wedding anniversary party. During the middle of the night, the heavy bedside table in his locked room apparently threw itself five or six feet from the bed, landing on its side, without waking him. A rationalist, skeptical of psychic phenomena, he never was able to explain the incident. The only logical explanation is that he moved the table while sleepwalking. But there are, perhaps, more things in heaven and earth…M.R. James (1862–1936, below), the Cambridge University and Eton medieval Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
It is a Hollywood truism that any film that begins with amateur footage of happy, smiling people ends in tears. Our War was no exception: fit young men messed about in the sun and somersaulted into the Med. However, their R&R was soon over and our boys were back in Afghanistan. As one member of Arnhem Company, 2nd battalion Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, so articulately put it: “I wouldn’t come here on fucking holiday.”The company’s nickname is the Lions of England – which immediately brings to mind the First World War phrase “lions led by donkeys”. This turned out to be ominously true. Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Although you probably wouldn't want to cast Rupert Penry-Jones as Falstaff or Arthur Daley, point him in the direction of a privileged and successful London barrister and you can't miss. In this three-part adaptation of Blake Morrison's novel, Penry-Jones is instantly in his element as Ollie, metropolitan legal eagle and partner of the glamorous Daisy (Genevieve O'Reilly), a professional head-hunter.However, all is not as it seems, as his old college friend Ian (Shaun Evans ) and his wife Em (Claire Keelan) begin to discover when they join the gilded couple for a weekend in an old house in Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
Lucy Gannon is the doyenne of drama-lite. Anyone who has seen Bramwell or Soldier, Soldier or Peak Practice will know her scripts, no matter how much suffering the characters undergo, will leave the viewer feeling better. She is in the reassurance game. The world is full of bad things and bad men but, generally, goodness wins out. All’s well that ends well.The Best of Men combines two of her favourite subjects: medicine and the military. It begins with a sepia-tinted flashback in which sweet William is lindy-hopping with his girl in a flowery meadow. Hands and Read more ...
howard.male
Because Brand has become something of a brand – the hair, the clothes, the pantomime gait, the post-Carry On banter – he can be hard to take seriously. Nevertheless, I’ve been an admirer since his jaw-droppingly risqué appearances on Big Brother’s Big Mouth in the mid-Noughties. It was obvious that this man loved the English language and had a ribald wit that wasn’t going to be contained by Big Brother’s sister show for long. So it’s gratifying to see that this engaging documentary has Brand at least partially escaping a character he’s now also thoroughly milked in Hollywood, in order to Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Created by Jonathan Nolan (brother of film director Christopher) and exec-produced by the workaholic JJ Abrams, Person of Interest seeks to accomplish the counter-intuitive feat of finding something to celebrate in our surveillance culture. We're accustomed to feeling fear and paranoia at the idea that all our tweets, emails and phone calls are being routinely monitored by sundry mysterious agencies, but Person of... wonders whether there's a silver lining in the menacing info-cloud hanging over us.The show's central duo is the mismatched couple of technology nerd Harold Finch (Michael Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
The red and black opening titles, in which a creepy house looms large, immediately tells the viewer we are in Hitchcock territory. However, Thirteen Steps Down, knowingly adapted for the small screen in two parts by Adrian Hodges, is based on Ruth Rendell’s 2005 novel of the same name. Like Hitchcock, Rendell knows there is laughter in slaughter.The undesirable residence turns out to be St Blaise House and not the home of Anthony Perkins’ mummified mummy. The significance of its name lies in its location, location, location – Notting Hill where back-street abortionist John Reginald Read more ...
Jasper Rees
“It was almost undescribable but I’ll give it a go.” Anyone from the group of athletes we have come to know as Team GB might have given voice to the thought, but the words happened to belong to Ed McKeever, one of the less charismatic of the freshly medalled guests to take his place on Gary Lineker’s sofa. Lineker, offering nightly sessions as some sort of entry-level shrink to the nation, spent the Olympic Games asking people to describe how they feel. It was a thankless gig, but someone had to keep popping the question. “Unbelievable, Gary,” they'd all say. “It’s difficult to put it into Read more ...
graeme.thomson
In the debating chambers and committee rooms of the Conservative Associations of Oxford and Cambridge lurk the Children of Cameron. The current cabinet is to a large extent an Oxbridge Old Boys club and succeeding generations are already being fattened up for the fray. Young, Bright and on the Right - and what an aimless title that was - picked two candidates and sharpened the knives.The film followed them as they negotiated the sharp end of student politics. Twenty-one-year-old Joe Cooke looked like a cross between Chris Evans and John Selwyn-Gummer and possessed a kind of dry charm and Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
American critics haven't been too kind to Aaron Sorkin's new HBO series about a cable TV news programme, for a variety of reasons. At least they had the advantage of understanding the intricate partisan infighting of American politics which forms the show's backdrop, and which will be baffling to many British viewers. On the other hand, nobody is likely to have much trouble recognising the A Few Good Men view of history familiar from previous Sorkin milestones such as The West Wing and, uh, A Few Good Men.This time around, Sorkin's hero is Will McAvoy, a former lawyer turned veteran TV anchor Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
What do you do after nine series celebrating the cooking and eating of food? You make another, charting the effort to lose some of the weight gained. This time out, the bike-riding Si King and David Myers are still eating and travelling, but trying to adjust what they put in their mouths, to make it less calorie-tastic. Some exercise was on the menu too. As was selling copies of the tie-in book.King and Myers are agreeable enough in small doses – and ought to know how to be after their careers in TV and film production which preceded their transformation into the Hairy Bikers. Their banter is Read more ...