TV
Money, BBC TwoWednesday, 26 May 2010
It was never going to work now, was it? Martin Amis’s dense yet surging 400-page novel condensed down to just two hours of primetime TV? But director Jeremy Lovering, along with writers Tom Butterworth and Chris Hurford (Ashes to Ashes) certainly... Read more... |
Stephen Fry on Wagner, BBC FourWednesday, 26 May 2010
Is there anywhere Stephen Fry will not go? I mean in documentaries. We’ve had Fry on depression and Fry on America, Fry on HIV and Fry on endangered species. Movingly, we’ve had Fry on who he thinks he is, an odyssey in which he discovered that much... Read more... |
Spartacus: Blood and Sand, BravoTuesday, 25 May 2010
I always liked that line in the 1960 Spartacus movie when Spartacus's lover Varinia (Jean Simmons) is bidding a silent farewell to the crucified rebel gladiator. "Tell da lady no loidering," growls the Roman sentry standing guard nearby. I can'... Read more... |
Opera Italia, BBC FourTuesday, 25 May 2010
The backlash begins here with the first of Flavia Rittner's three documentaries: not an operatic wannabe or a gushing celebrity outsider to present, only a conductor who knows and loves his job inside out and a parade of gorgeous, energetic singers... Read more... |
The Stones in Exile: an Imagine Special, BBC OneSunday, 23 May 2010
Aptly, this new documentary about how the Rolling Stones fled from England to the South of France to record Exile on Main Street was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, with a supernaturally healthy-looking Mick Jagger on hand to give it a... Read more... |
Ashes to Ashes, BBC OneSaturday, 22 May 2010
After the final episode of The Prisoner was aired in February 1968, Patrick McGoohan had to go into hiding after being besieged at home by viewers demanding an explanation about his teasingly obscure (and, I think, rather brilliant) ending. It’s... Read more... |
Interview: Martin Amis on 'The Whole Book-To-Film Department'Friday, 21 May 2010
Martin Amis always had his own idea of who should play John Self, the anti-heroic slob narrator of Money. "The only regret I have in the whole book-to-film department,” he told me, “is that Gary Oldman never played John Self. We had a meeting with... Read more... |
Mental: A History of the Madhouse, BBC FourTuesday, 18 May 2010
Most people’s experience of the 120 or so Victorian asylums that littered the UK landscape for more than a century is, thankfully, oohing and aahing over the “sophisticated and sensitive” conversions they have become, providing “astonishing, unusual... Read more... |
Royal Wedding, BBC TwoTuesday, 18 May 2010
Where were you? For those of us too young to experience Kennedy’s assassination, which realistically is anyone under the age of 55, the Royal Wedding is the next event along the chain of history that simultaneously impinged on much of the globe’s... Read more... |
Chalk a line around it: Law & Order is deadMonday, 17 May 2010
American television network executives more concerned about remaking old dramas (Rockford Files 2010, anyone?) than maintaining a powerhouse drama which has wowed critics and fans for 20 years have finally killed off Law & Order. Custom has... Read more... |
The Genius of Design: Designs for Living, BBC TwoSunday, 16 May 2010
Does form always have to follow function? Is ornamentation really such a heinous crime? Or is Modernism itself the enemy of the people? The second part of this excellent five-part series – fab archive footage, great interviews with designers young... Read more... |
Justified, Five USAWednesday, 12 May 2010
Elmore Leonard’s authorial voice has proved elusive to those trying to replicate it on screen – not least to Leonard himself. Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1995 Get Shorty was an honourable exception, but mostly his deeply satisfying humour is lost in... Read more... |
