BBC One
Jasper Rees
What’s the opposite of a pilot? Griff Rhys Jones has not performed in a comedic capacity for nearly a decade and a half. When he did, he was always part of a larger company – first Not the Nine O’Clock News, then for 14 years in a partnership with Mel Smith. There must be a reason why he never struck out on his own. Alas, last night the reason was supplied by The One Griff Rhys Jones, a one-off half-hour of sketches topped by a bit of live stand-up, tailed by a reunion with Smith. They've already offered the same sort of exhumation to Ronnie Corbett and Jasper Carrott, who are at least still Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The recent suicide of Wales's football manager Gary Speed prompted angstful outpourings about the hidden menace of depression in top-level sport, even though there was no evidence that Speed was a sufferer. But depression clearly is an occupational hazard among sportsmen, with cricket incurring a disturbingly high rate of player suicides, and in this film former England superstar Freddie Flintoff (real name Andrew) probed into some high-profile case histories.Boxer Ricky Hatton recalled how he'd been traumatised by being knocked out by Manny Pacquiao in 2009, and fell into a deepening spiral Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Without wanting to sound humbuggy, do we really need another Great Expectations? Let alone two. There’s yet another movie coming next year but breasting the tape first is a new three-parter from the BBC. Cinema last visited the story of Pip Pirrip in 1998 when Alfonso Cuarón transplanted the novel to present-day New York. On television Tony Marchant had a go a year later. Theatre was there even more recently with Declan Donnellan's staging for the RSC in 2005 and Watford Palace's Asian version earlier this year. And looming over them all there’s always David Lean’s still definitive adaptation Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“For three weeks the Beans leave rich pickings for us Borrowers”. It’s probably not how most of us see the Christmas season, but if you’re a miniature person living under the floorboards, the seasonal treasures of the full-size humans – Beans – are irresistible. Setting this lovely one-off adaptation of Mary Norton’s books about the tiny recyclers over the advent count-down and bringing it up to date might have been obvious, but it charmed.The Clock family live under the floorboards of the house lived in by Human Bean Granny Driver. Living with her is lonely James, her grandson. His mum has Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Joy was unconfined in my house as the J-team reunited for Christmas to give us the greatest gift of the season. Not that baby and his royal visitors in Bethlehem but Jennifer Saunders, who gathered together her old mates Joanna Lumley, Jane Horrocks, June Whitfield and Julia Sawalha for a cracker of a reunion stuffed with gags.It's nearly 20 years since Absolutely Fabulous burst on to our screens, and six since its last hurrah, a Comic Relief sketch. In the opening episode of this two-parter, PR Eddie (Saunders) – post-menopausal, “held together by gels, pills and suppositories, darling” but Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Next time you glance up at the stars, spare a thought for your Christmas tree. It’s probably topped by a star, but some of those in the sky might just be the spirit of the tree itself. By helping free the spirits of the trees in a forest, the Doctor transported the symbols of Christmas into an adventure that only he could have instigated. The combination of Christmas, the World War Two setting, Matt Smith’s vitality and a family uncertain of their future ensured this nostalgic fantasy was an instant seasonal classic.The war is ongoing and Christmas is almost here. Madge Arwell comes across a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
What makes something funny? Why do comics stand on stage in front of strangers and try to make them laugh? Is any subject beyond a joke? What is the purpose of Alan Yentob? Those questions – OK, only the first three – were raised by Imagine's presenter in this, the first of a two-parter about the art of stand-up.The documentary about comedy on this side of the pond (tonight's second part is about American stand-up) was stuffed full of comic talent – so full, indeed, that we saw unusually little of the presenter, although he still managed to shoehorn himself unnecessarily often into the Read more ...
Jasper Rees
You can see why prequels come into being. A dramatic character becomes a national treasure and eventually, once old age or worse removes them from the small screen, they are opportunistically exhumed by means of the backstory. Young Delboy was brought back to life in Rock and Chips. Young Morse is expected to be solving murders soon. And now here comes Young James Herriot. For all the logic of squeezing a last drop of juice out of a character, it seems a bizarre notion to revisit a vet who last shoved a forearm up a barnyard orifice more than 20 years ago.The Herriot industry carried all Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Will the app clicker replace the page turner?” asked Alan Yentob’s state-of-play rumination on the book. It’s a cutely phrased question and, as everyone reading this will be familiar with the digital world – this is theartsdesk, after all – a fair one. Will zeroes and ones make the book redundant, a sort of totem, or will it adapt, taking on the new forms presented by the digital world? The programme didn’t answer the questions, but at least it did show the possibilities.A hunt around the BBC’s various websites revealed that Books – the Last Chapter? was known as Books –the End of the Affair Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
That Alan Yentob gets around. I’ve run into him backstage during Jay Z's set at Glastonbury and in a jazz club in Poland, and here we found him in Rajasthan fronting a fascinating and well-shot programme, albeit workmanlike rather than really inspired, mostly set in one of the richest traditional music areas of India.Yentob (nicknamed Botney, which sounds like a furry robot) isn’t everyone’s cup of Bragg, and he isn’t that immediately likeable. Personally I prefer his lugubriousness to the overexcited and eager-to-please presenters TV bosses tend to go for. And he found the time to make a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Steve Buscemi says he’s “from the country of Brooklyn”. In the wake of Boardwalk Empire he could have said the empire of Brooklyn. Although the family history disinterred was genuinely strange, this first entry in the new series of Who Do You Think You Are? USA was no emotional roller coaster, mostly because of Buscemi’s low-key affability.At times, he looked surprised to be the subject of the programme. Yeah, he’s the cadaverous, snaggle-toothed, weasel-faced Buscemi we love. But look at those dark-rimmed eyes. Bush baby big, they’re made for surprise. He was taken aback by what the Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Garrow’s Law, which returned last night for a third series, would seem to be entirely about the foreign country that is Georgian England. One of its progenitors is Tony Marchant who, give or take the odd adaptation of Dickens or Dostoevsky, has spent his packed writing life in the modern day. But they don’t seem to make his kind of searing contemporary drama any more, the type that hunts for the root cause of moral failure in individuals and society. So in order to hold a mirror up to his audience, he has turned to the 1700s. Profitably.The shrewdness of Garrow’s Law is that it has a foot in Read more ...