TV
Adam Sweeting
This was the third collaboration between Dave and the mental health charity CALM (Comedy Against Living Miserably), hosted at EartH in Dalston by Joel Dommett. Its non-standard format comprised chunks of performances by the featured standup comics, intercut with the performers discussing what their material says about mental health.It’s a pressing issue and this is a commendable initiative, but the stilted structure meant the acts never really worked up a head of steam. Just as they began to get going onstage, we would cut away to another dollop of discussion and the momentum was lost. It Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Director Nick Green’s new three-parter follows on the heels of his A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad and comparisons are sure to be made between his two subjects. Though the finer degrees of political power-play – and the sheer quantity of attendant blood-letting – may vary, both investigate how the two autocratic regimes concerned came into being and how they have managed to enjoy such almost total power for so long (and look likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future).The two stories share a central paradox, too, namely the personalities of their leaders. When Syria’s Bashar Read more ...
Guy Oddy
There aren’t many metal bands like Slipknot. For a start, the nine-piece line-up consists of the standard vocalist, two guitars, bass and drums – but then there are also two percussionists, sampler and decks. Their music is consistently ferocious, with a hardcore, high-speed, ragging thump and semi-comprehensible lyrics that leaves no room for chart-friendly power ballads. On stage they wear modern horror film costumes, fright-masks and put on a high octane, theatrical show that is not for the faint-hearted.Yet, Slipknot are one of the biggest and highest-earning bands on the planet that only Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Julian Fellowes admits he knows little about football and has always hated sport in general, but this hasn’t prevented him from writing a TV series (for Netflix) about football’s 19th century origins. While his other new series, ITV’s Belgravia, feels sharp and skilfully crafted, The English Game is more like a mud bath in the Scunthorpe Wednesday Evening League.His theme might be summed up as toffs and robbers. It’s set in the 1870s, when football (largely invented in public schools) was becoming organised under rules laid down by the Football Association, comprising mostly public school Read more ...
Liz Thomson
It’s almost unbearably poignant, on this black Friday evening in March 2020, to watch a documentary about Ready Steady Go! , “the most innovative rock ‘n’ roll show ever”, believes Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the second of its four directors who went on to work with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he!” – but he’s right. Nothing has surpassed it, certainly not Top of the Pops, BBC TV’s response to the programme which, based around the singles chart, eventually helped kill it.“The weekend starts here” was its (unofficial) slogan, though it wasn’t quoted in The Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
This patchwork of interviews and comments from male journalists and politicians interspersed with clips from television news and films, from The Godfather to The Avengers, was a zig-zag narrative of Dominic Cummings’s unique career as a political strategist. Complete with portentous throbbing music, this BBC Two film was also a Hamlet without the Prince. Cummings was seen in moments from broadcast programmes or filmed addressing his troops, like a kaleidoscope reflected in the opinions of others.Presenter Emily Maitlis elicited a variety of comments: he is fearless in his views (but what are Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
“I am not intense.” That declaration arrives early in Feel Good, the new Channel 4 and Netflix romantic comedy fronted by comedian Mae Martin, who plays a fictionalised version of herself. Over Mae’s shoulder, we see a literal trash fire. She’s lit up the evidence of a past drug addiction. It smoulders in the background while she smoulders in the front.This scene is Feel Good in miniature: it encapsulates Martin's brand of vulnerable, quirky comedy, pinned to her appeal as a character and a creator. The series is easy to watch and easy to like. Still, Feel Good has a hindrance. For a Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Presenter Waldemar Januszczak suffers from something very like Robert Peston Syndrome, which makes him bellow at the camera and distort words as if they’re chewing gum he’s peeling off the sole of his shoe. Nonetheless he has a knack for finding fresh and revealing angles on art history, as he aims to do in this new series.Vincent Van Gogh’s painting Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear is frequently taken to be the pitiable proof of the artist’s hopeless derangement, another step along the road to his eventual suicide by gunshot, but Januszczak gradually revealed a more nuanced and much more Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Adapted by Kate O’Riordan from her own novel, Penance is a taut little thriller spread over three consecutive nights. It’s not going to rock the planet off its axis, but there’s enough twisty and salacious intrigue to keep you coming back.There’s a deluxe, feature-film-like quality about the production, and its pedigree cast doesn’t hurt. Julie Graham plays Rosalie Douglas, a 50-ish former care-worker who now runs three of her own care homes. Her husband Luke is played by Neil Morrissey, who seems to have cornered the market on weak, feckless husbands and carries on the tradition here. Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
The multi-talented Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, Designated Survivor, House) took a two-year acting sabbatical in 2009 to work for the Obama administration. So he is, in theory, ideally placed to co-create, with Matt Murray, a semi-political TV sitcom about a New York City councillor.Councilman Garrett Modi (Modi is actually Penn’s real name) lets partying with Wall Street douchebags go to his head, is busted for driving on the expressway under the influence, then vomits on a police car and attempts to bribe the cops for a billion dollars. Of course, this goes viral and he’s soon pitching up Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The prolific Lord Fellowes returns with this six-part adaptation of his own novel (for ITV), a niftily-wrought yarn (originally issued in online instalments) about the old aristocracy and the rise of new money in the early 19th Century. Some are inevitably calling it the “new Downton”, but it really isn’t.Fellowes, the assiduous social historian, has planted his story firmly in factual soil. It opens at a pivotal moment in the Napoleonic Wars, when the Duchess of Richmond held her celebrated ball at her temporary home in Brussels on 15 June, 1815. This was days before the battle of Waterloo, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It was in March 2018 that Australia’s cricketers were caught ball-tampering during a Test match in Cape Town. The resulting public outcry and sanctions against the guilty players and assorted backroom staff shook the Australian game to the core. There was a sense that the team had developed a bullying, arrogant attitude, and this was their well-deserved come-uppance.Australia’s process of rehabilitation, with a rebuilt team under new coach Justin Langer, is the theme of Amazon’s meaty eight-part documentary series, directed by Adrian Brown. If you’re a cricket fan you won’t be able to resist Read more ...