BBC Four
Arena: Whatever Happened to Spitting Image? BBC FourFriday, 21 March 2014
“You can never embarrass politicians by giving them publicity.” Michael Heseltine’s verdict on Spitting Image – he claimed, of course, he never watched it – was surely one of the truer things said in last night's Arena memorial Whatever Happened to... Read more... |
The Walshes, BBC FourFriday, 14 March 2014
Zany Dublin family comprising eccentric parents, neurotic daughter and dozy slacker son prepare to meet daughter's new boyfriend... Sound promising? No not especially, but The Walshes is written by Graham Linehan (with help from the "Diet of Worms"... Read more... |
The Brits Who Built the Modern World, BBC Four / The Man Who Fought the Planners, BBC FourFriday, 21 February 2014
There really was astonishing talent on display in The Brits Who Built the Modern World (*****), as full a television panorama of the work of the five architects whose careers were under examination – Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw... Read more... |
The Life of Rock with Brian Pern, BBC FourTuesday, 11 February 2014
It’s a brave comic who steps into the spandex zucchini-stuffed loon pants of Spinal Tap. The – if you will – rockumentary will never be done better. But it is 30 years since Marty DiBergi went in search of the sights, the sounds, the smells of a... Read more... |
The Bridge, Series 2 Finale, BBC FourSunday, 02 February 2014
The Saga saga is over. An eco-terrorist plot to kill off the top tier of Europe’s environment ministers has been foiled, with nails bitten to the quick. Various Nordic marriages are in tatters, like a boxed set of Strindberg. Justice has been done... Read more... |
Timeshift - How to Be Sherlock Holmes, BBC Four / Sherlock, BBC OneSunday, 12 January 2014
As Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock reached the end of its latest brief span, Timeshift [****] surveyed the history of dramatic interpretations of Baker Street's finest with a wry eye, in a narrative sprinkled with nutritious facts and anecdotes. The... Read more... |
The Bridge, Series 2, BBC Four / Hinterland, BBC One WalesSunday, 05 January 2014
Why has Nordic noir been such an addictive novelty? Yes the plots are great, the locations moodily cool, the flat dialogue enigmatic. But in the end it’s all about gender. The detective who is a genius at work but clueless at life – we’ve seen it... Read more... |
Lionel Bart: Reviewing the Situation, BBC FourThursday, 05 December 2013
These days, it seems you can't move without encountering musicals in some context or another on TV. Series like Smash and Glee trade on the genre to a degree hovering between the loving and the parasitic, while two contrasting documentaries, The... Read more... |
Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves, BBC FourTuesday, 03 December 2013
The bleak opening of Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves is set in a nursing home where a man is dying of AIDS, tended by nurses who themselves know next to nothing of the disease. The phrase one nurse utters as a warning gives this Swedish drama... Read more... |
Blues America: Woke Up This Morning, BBC FourSaturday, 30 November 2013
“Long may it stay a mystery,” said Keith Richards, the first talking head seen in this opening shot of a two-part excursion through blues music. Self-evidently, two hours devoted to this oft-explored subject wasn’t going to leave too many mysteries... Read more... |
Why Birgitte of Borgen has your voteWednesday, 13 November 2013
God morgen. Yes, Borgen is back on Saturday nights, and it’s all change at the top of Danish coalition politics. It gives nothing away to say that Birgitte Nyborg is no longer statsminister – she called an election and the opposition’s bluff at the... Read more... |
Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies, BBC FourFriday, 13 September 2013
BBC Four’s new series Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies is shocking. The overwhelming majority of arts-based TV consists of programmes consigning specialist knowledge/presenters to the sidelines in favour of dumbed-down, easily... Read more... |
