TV
h.Club 100 Awards 2017: The WinnersWednesday, 04 October 2017![]() At a festive ceremony on Tuesday night at The Hospital Club in central London, the winners were announced for this year's h.Club 100 Awards. The distinguished broacaster John Simpson (pictured below) gave an impassioned keynote address about the... Read more... |
The Last Post, BBC One review - sundown on the EmpireMonday, 02 October 2017![]() Peter Moffat, author of Silk and The Village, has turned his sights on the last days of Empire for his latest series. Specifically, Moffat has mined his own memories of growing up in a British Army family in Aden in the 1960s, where his father was... Read more... |
Billion Dollar Deals That Changed Your World, BBC Two review - Big Pharma gets a diagnosis: it’s sickThursday, 28 September 2017![]() “What if the way people understand the world is wrong? What if it isn’t politicians that shape the way people live their day-to-day lives, but secret business deals?” This is the question at the heart – and at the start – of Jacques Peretti’s... Read more... |
The Deuce, Sky Atlantic review - a magnificent, sleazy epicWednesday, 27 September 2017![]() There’s a moment in The Deuce (Sky Atlantic) – a rare quiet one – where a working girl called Darlene is visiting a kindly old gent on her books. He has A Tale of Two Cities on his TV, the old black and white version with Dirk Bogarde as Sydney... Read more... |
h.Club 100 Awards: Broadcast - calling out around the worldWednesday, 27 September 2017![]() As Sky’s Head of Drama Anne Mensah puts it, her ambition is to “stay local but look global”. This might serve as a motto for television in its entirety, as technology swallows the planet and TV is increasingly shaped by coalitions of international... Read more... |
The Child in Time, BBC One review - lost in translationMonday, 25 September 2017![]() Apparently this is the first time an Ian McEwan novel has been dramatised for television, but whether The Child in Time was the best choice for that singular honour is open to question. It’s watchable enough, but this version (made by Benedict... Read more... |
Bad Move, ITV review - Jack Dee resettles in the middle of the roadThursday, 21 September 2017That the countryside is a dump where all good things come to a dead end is hardly a new punchline. There are plenty of novels and memoirs, and indeed newspaper columns, about trading the toxic metropolis for the green and unpleasant pastures of the... Read more... |
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum, BBC Four review - moving picturesMonday, 18 September 2017![]() Magnum was founded just after the war in 1947 as a co-operative that ensured both the quality of its members, and their clout in dealing with the media world. Its longevity is testimony to its success. The original founders were war-hardened photo... Read more... |
Black Lake, BBC Four review – Nordic blanc falls flatSunday, 17 September 2017![]() What would Saturday nights be without BBC Four’s regular subtitle-fests? Black Lake, their new Swedish import, has nothing in the way of originality to recommend it, but its tale of a haunted ski resort somewhere out towards the Norwegian border may... Read more... |
100 Year Old Driving School, ITV review – a warning with historyWednesday, 13 September 2017While Horizon, on BBC2, was telling us that the first person to walk on Mars could well be walking among us now, ITV's 100 Year Old Driving School suggested that the space mission could take a major setback if that wannabe astronaut were to... Read more... |
Rellik, BBC One review - tricksy procedural messes with timeTuesday, 12 September 2017![]() There are two Williams brothers – Jack and Harry – who are mainly known for two series of The Missing. No chance of the Williamses going missing. Quite the reverse. As of today – Monday 11 September – they seem to have cloned. Two new drama series... Read more... |
Liar, ITV - who, if anybody, is telling the truth?Tuesday, 12 September 2017![]() Could handsome, successful, designer-stubbly Ioan Gruffudd really be a rapist? Yes, according to schoolteacher Laura Nielson (Joanne Froggatt). No, according to Gruffudd’s character Andrew Earlham, a distinguished surgeon and widower apparently... Read more... |
