BBC Two
Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius, BBC Two review - the Bard's soul bared in hybrid drama-documentaryWednesday, 15 November 2023
Four centuries on from the publication of the First Folio, is there anything new to be said about William Shakespeare? Well, the fact that there is nothing old to be said about him (very little is known about the life of the glover’s son from... Read more... |
TS Eliot: Into The Waste Land, BBC Two / Four Quartets, Starring Ralph Fiennes, BBC Four review - a great 100th birthday present to a giant of modern literatureMonday, 17 October 2022
Can you make modern poetry come to life on a TV screen? The BBC has had two stabs recently at answering this question, as part of the centennary celebrations for TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, seen by many as the greatest poem of the 20th century. One... Read more... |
The Newsreader, BBC Two review - a drama series of welcome substance from AustraliaMonday, 25 July 2022
Period drama from Australia is something of a rarity on our televisions, so The Newsreader scores for novelty alone. It’s not startlingly innovative in form, but it does what it sets out to do in a highly satisfying way. Which is to tell a tale of... Read more... |
Mick Jagger: My Life as a Rolling Stone review, BBC Two - the rock'n'roll enigma gives little away as the band reaches 60Monday, 04 July 2022
At the beginning of this film, Mick Jagger says: “What most documentaries do is repeat the same thing over and over… all the mythology is repeated until it becomes true.” He’s right, as he so often is. This latest attempt to prise open the enigma of... Read more... |
Thatcher & Reagan: A Very Special Relationship, BBC Two review - when the Iron Lady met the Cowboy PresidentMonday, 04 April 2022
This two-part documentary about how the Eighties were partly shaped by the British Prime Minister and the US President was obviously planned long before the Russians invaded Ukraine, but it’s a powerful illustration of how history doesn’t stop, but... Read more... |
Danny Boy, BBC Two review - when law and war collideThursday, 13 May 2021
The issue of public inquiries into the conduct of the military is in the headlines again, with a current focus on Northern Ireland, but at the centre of screenwriter Robert Jones’s Danny Boy was the attempt to find British soldiers guilty of war... Read more... |
My Father and Me, BBC Two review - Nick Broomfield's moving voyage around his familySunday, 21 March 2021
Nick Broomfield made his first film 50 years ago, and his career over those five decades (and some three dozen works) has been as distinctive, and distinguished as that of any British documentary maker. It has ranged from early films on British... Read more... |
The Terror, BBC Two review - nightmare in the Arctic wastesThursday, 04 March 2021
Admittedly, Antarctic explorer Captain Scott was at the other end of the earth from the protagonists of The Terror (BBC Two), but they would surely have concurred with his anguished observation: “Great God! This is an awful place.” Based on Dan... Read more... |
Harlots, BBC Two review – sublime, ridiculous, and always entertainingThursday, 05 November 2020
Back to Georgian brothels, now – at least, for those of us who don’t have a Hulu subscription. The BBC’s airing of the second series of Harlots over the summer felt strangely timely. Barely an episode in and an angry crowd was hammering at the local... Read more... |
Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson, BBC Two review - ambitious history of the slave trade falls shortMonday, 12 October 2020
Enlisting Hollywood giant Samuel L Jackson to host a series about the history of slavery, his own ancestors having been trafficked from West Africa to the Americas, was a headline-grabbing move, and scenes where we travelled with Jackson to the... Read more... |
Our World: Colombia - Saving Eden, BBC Two review - the war is over, but can they save the rainforests?Wednesday, 26 August 2020
Stories of the destruction of the natural environment are depressingly common, but Frank Gardner brought a fresh slant to this punchy account of a botanical expedition to Colombia (BBC Two). Best known as the BBC’s security correspondent, Gardner... Read more... |
The Unbelievable Story of Carl Beech, BBC Two review - a stomach-turning swamp of lies and incompetenceTuesday, 25 August 2020
The story of the malignant fantasist Carl Beech is one of the more iniquitous episodes in British legal history, a stomach-turning swamp of lies, gullibility and heinous incompetence. It shook faith in some of our supposedly most robust institutions... Read more... |
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