BBC Two
Mum, BBC Two, series 2 review - Lesley Manville is a discreet delightWednesday, 21 February 2018
This week brings a tale of two comedies. Both half-hour sitcoms are about widowed mothers with grown-up sons still at home. Each woman has an unattached admirer. Both shows star fine comic actresses who learned much of their craft in the films of... Read more... |
Collateral, BBC Two review - a lecture or a drama?Thursday, 15 February 2018
It says something about the state of television that sooner or later every actor has to play a cop or a spy. Latest in line is Carey Mulligan, starring as DI Kip Glaspie in David Hare’s new four-parter Collateral.This is, on the face of it, a... Read more... |
Inside No 9, series 4, BBC Two review - laughter in the darkWednesday, 24 January 2018
Talk about laughter in the dark. With every successive episode, the fourth series of Inside No 9 (BBC Two) has perceptibly turned a shade blacker. "Zanzibar" was a festive farce mashing up half the plots of Shakespeare from Macbeth to A Comedy of... Read more... |
Great American Railway Journeys, Series 3, BBC Two review - edutainment despite shortage of trainsTuesday, 23 January 2018
Michael Portillo has barely been off a train since leaving politics, taking journeys blending scenery and history: it must be a relief receiving plaudits for edutainment instead of the abuse habitually heaped on politicians.Herewith the third... Read more... |
Alan Partridge: Why, When, Where, How and Whom?, BBC Two review - a helping of Christmas PartridgeThursday, 28 December 2017
Over 25 years since his modest inception as a parody sports reporter, Alan Partridge has become one of comedy’s most enduring icons. With a new BBC series expected in 2018, we were treated to a tribute (or Partribute, if you will) to the impressive... Read more... |
Peaky Blinders, Series 4 Finale, BBC Two review – Tommy faces his reckoningFriday, 22 December 2017
Luca Changretta got his just desserts, Alfie Solomons made a last gasp for the quiet life, and Thomas Shelby revealed his true enemy – Peaky Blinders wrapped up another exciting series in a high-octane and neat finale.Tommy always has a way out... Read more... |
The League of Gentlemen, BBC2 review - an anniversary to celebrateThursday, 21 December 2017
In 1994, a group of students at Bretton Hall drama school – Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith – began writing and performing together. They took as their name the title of a Jack Hawkins film, The League of Gentlemen,... Read more... |
Joe Orton Laid Bare, BBC Two review - charming look at theatre's irresistible upstartSunday, 26 November 2017
Laid Bare – it has a lurid implication which is all too suitable for Joe Orton’s work. During a time where the straight-laced British struggled to ease into sexual liberation, Orton stretched acceptability to its very limits. Salacious acts had been... Read more... |
Peaky Blinders, series 4, BBC Two review - new threats, same thrillsThursday, 16 November 2017
BBC Two’s flagship crime drama Peaky Blinders returns for another guilty dose of slo-mo walking, flying sparks and anachronistic soundtracks. In the opening episode “The Noose”, we’re served a familiar course of family disputes, sinister threats and... Read more... |
Motherland / Detectorists review - comedy classics go at their own paceThursday, 16 November 2017
As Motherland settles down into its first series proper after last year’s pilot, it still seems to be going at a fair gallop. For those of you who haven’t seen it, the sitcom, written by Graham Linehan and Sharon Horgan along with Helen Linehan and... Read more... |
Newsnight: Grenfell Tower - The 21st Floor, BBC Two review - a simple, moving reconstructionTuesday, 24 October 2017
The streets around Grenfell Tower on the morning after it was consumed by fire heaved with people. A stream of donors brought food, clothes and toiletries, while news crews and journalists came in vans or on foot as if arriving in a war zone. Not... Read more... |
Chris Packham: Asperger's and Me, BBC Two review - 'like an alien from another planet'Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Chris Packham, who devises and presents programmes about nature and animals, has described himself as "a little bit weird". This autobiographical documentary about himself explained what being on the autistic spectrum meant to him in particular in... Read more... |
