TV
Climate Change: The Facts, BBC One review - how much reality can humankind bear?Friday, 19 April 2019
Peer down the glassy dark and you’ll see them. White bubbles trapped in the frozen lake which appear to be rising to the surface. Look through the permafrost this way and you’re seeing into the past: as the ice melts, gas which was captured and... Read more... |
Chimerica, Channel 4 review - fake news, true dramaThursday, 18 April 2019
Chimerica is a stage-to-screen adaptation that has certainly kept up with the times. When it opened at the Almeida back in 2013 – a West End transfer followed, along with an Olivier award for Best New Play – Lucy Kirkwood’s drama was (very... Read more... |
Trust Me, Series 2, BBC One review - hospital killer chillerWednesday, 17 April 2019
Great, a new drama not by the Williams brothers. Instead it’s Dan Sefton’s second iteration of his medical thriller Trust Me, last seen in 2017 starring Jody Whittaker. Since she’s off being Doctor Who, the new series has a new cast, with John... Read more... |
Back to Life, BBC Three review - Daisy Haggard finds laughs in prison releaseTuesday, 16 April 2019
Pre-publicity for Back to Life has been all about its stablemate. This new six-part comedy comes from the same producers who brought you Fleabag, and the hope is that the Midas touch is catching. It seems unlikely, on the face of it, to follow the... Read more... |
Rock Island Line: The Song That Made Britain Rock, BBC Four review - the early dawn of BritpopSaturday, 13 April 2019
If you were a fan of “Rock Island Line” when it became a pop hit, you’d have to be at least in your mid-70s now. In 1956, Paul McCartney heard Lonnie Donegan perform it live in Liverpool, and Paul’s rising 77. How many below that age know it is moot... Read more... |
Don't Forget the Driver, BBC Two review - trying to beat the Bognor bluesWednesday, 10 April 2019
Bognor Regis was once renowned for its restorative climate and was much favoured by George V (he awarded the town the “Regis” tag), but times have changed if Toby Jones’s new series is anything to go by. The Bognor we see in BBC Two's Don't Forget... Read more... |
Fleabag, Series 2 finale, BBC Three review - Phoebe Waller-Bridge's miraculous situation tragedyTuesday, 09 April 2019
The problem with Fleabag (BBC Three/BBC One) is that it makes almost all television look pedestrian. It’s like the difference between Fleabag’s scummily inadequate boyfriends and the unattainable perfection embodied by the cool sweary priest. Earth... Read more... |
The Widow, ITV review - Kate Beckinsale stars in tale of a missing husbandTuesday, 09 April 2019
The Williams brothers (The Missing, Liar, Rellik, Baptiste) are back. In The Widow, the writer-producer team of Jack and Harry move on to Wales, Rotterdam and corruption in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the recipe is wearyingly familiar... Read more... |
This Time with Alan Partridge, Series finale, BBC One review - back to his worstTuesday, 02 April 2019
Piers Morgan hated This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC One) and predicted it would be pulled before the end of the series. This may be taken as a kitemark of quality. And yet the prime target for Steve Coogan’s satire was no voice in the wilderness.... Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series 5, BBC One review - already it's dark, dirty and dangerousMonday, 01 April 2019
Congratulations to Stephen Graham, guest-starring in this fifth season of BBC One’s Line of Duty, for still being alive at the end of episode one, a favour not routinely granted to headline names in Jed Mercurio’s diabolical labyrinth of deception.... Read more... |
For Folk's Sake: 'I owe my very existence to Morris dancing'Monday, 01 April 2019
Halfway through filming For Folk’s Sake, a documentary for BBC Four about Morris dancing, I received a package in the post that would dramatically change the course of the programme. It was from my mother. Inside were a number of yellowing newspaper... Read more... |
The Beatles: Made on Merseyside, BBC Four review - when the Fab Four were fiveSaturday, 30 March 2019
Documentaries about the 20th century’s most fabled quartet keep coming. There’s no special call for The Beatles: Made on Merseyside (BBC Four), which looked at the group’s Liverpool beginnings, though at a stretch it could be argued that in the 50th... Read more... |
