TV
Lenny Henry's Race Through Comedy, Gold review - illuminating account of TV's struggle to become multiculturalWednesday, 16 October 2019
Sir Lenny Henry, PhD and CBE, is scarcely recognisable as the teenager who made his TV debut on New Faces in 1975. He’s been a stand-up comedian, musician and Shakespearean actor, and even wrote his own dramatised autobiography for BBC One.A... Read more... |
Chaos in the Cockpit: Flights from Hell, Channel 5 review - do we really want to watch plane-wreck TV?Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Apparently your odds of dying in a plane crash are about one in 11 million, while chances of death in a car accident are about one in 5,000. Therefore flying is theoretically safe, and supposedly getting safer. You wouldn’t know it from the TV... Read more... |
Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes, BBC Four review - a perfectly paced tale of world-shaking basslines and human frailtySaturday, 12 October 2019
If there was ever a documentary that needed you to have good speakers on your TV setup – or good headphones if you're watching on computer or tablet – this is it. It maybe goes without saying that reggae needs good bass reproduction to appreciate,... Read more... |
The Capture, BBC One, series finale review - nimble drama alive with twistsWednesday, 09 October 2019
What did we learn at the end of The Capture (BBC One)? A rice jar is a good place to hide USB sticks. It’s possible to withhold the opening credits for 11 whole minutes. A green coat works exceptionally well with light blue eyes and shoulder-length... Read more... |
Doing Drugs for Fun, Channel 5 review - why the cocaine trade is no laughing matterWednesday, 09 October 2019
Monday night’s first episode of this three-part series was a bit ordinary, as it introduced its cast of British recreational cocaine users and explained why their habit may be ill-advised. We learned that the British take more drugs than any other... Read more... |
The Great British Bake Off, Episode 7, Channel 4 review - bakers hampered by pointless celebritiesWednesday, 09 October 2019
What’s extraordinary about Bake Off is not just the staggering complexity of the cooking challenges, but the amount of technical shenanigans that go into turning it into a finished programme (actually, spoiler-averse Channel 4 had teasingly left the... Read more... |
DVD: Do Not Adjust Your Set / At Last The 1948 ShowTuesday, 08 October 2019
Both first broadcast in 1967, Do Not Adjust Your Set and At Last the 1948 Show were collectively written and performed by the future Monty Python team. More written about and discussed than actually seen, many episodes were wiped or lost, and these... Read more... |
Catherine the Great, Sky Atlantic review - a glorious role for Helen Mirren only gets betterFriday, 04 October 2019
“I want something Russian…” It’s with such a cry that Helen Mirren, bored by the bizarrely transgressive masked ball that comes at the close of the first episode of Catherine the Great, gets the dancing going: nothing from the imported fashions of... Read more... |
The Capture, Episode 5, BBC One review - the man who knew too muchWednesday, 02 October 2019
Five episodes ago, BBC One's The Capture set off at a cracking pace with the apparent abduction and murder of barrister Hannah Roberts by army lance-corporal Shaun Emery. With Roberts’s help, Emery had been acquitted of killing a Taliban fighter in... Read more... |
Snackmasters, Channel 4 review - superchefs take the clone-a-KitKat challengeWednesday, 02 October 2019
The themes of food and cookery have already been boiled until the bottom of the saucepan melted, but TV commissioning editors can’t stop searching for new twists in the formula. So how about this one – get a couple of prestigious superchefs, and... Read more... |
World on Fire, BBC One review - more melodrama than dramaMonday, 30 September 2019
For his new drama series for BBC One, writer Peter Bowker (The A Word, Monroe etc) has taken as his canvas no less than a panorama of Europe in 1939, just as World War Two is breaking out. His principal characters include Harry Chase, a young man... Read more... |
My Life is Murder, Alibi review - whimsical tales of detection from Down UnderWednesday, 25 September 2019
Lucy Lawless achieved cult status in the Nineties fantasy classic Xena: Warrior Princess, and later became a regular in such disparate creations as Battlestar Galactica and Parks and Recreation. In My Life is Murder, she joins the ever-expanding... Read more... |
