documentary
The Cricklewood Greats, BBC FourMonday, 06 February 2012
Walking into a Wickes DIY superstore in Cricklewood, north London, Peter Capaldi is overwhelmed. The history there isn’t obvious as shoppers scurry about. But he knows it’s the site of Cricklewood Studios, the engine of British cinema that churned... Read more... |
theASHtray: Beyoncé, 'Bond', and Eddie Redmayne's lipsSaturday, 04 February 2012
So, Birdsong is over, and for all the arts-crit ink spilled upon it I am still none the wiser vis-à-vis my three main points of concern. First: it is a truth universally acknowledged (I asked around) that the most memorable episode in... Read more... |
Confessions From the Underground, Channel 4Friday, 03 February 2012
Although focusing on London’s Tube network, Confessions From the Underground brought up issues that aren’t unique to Britain’s infrastructure. Increasing usage versus declining levels of staff. Employees working against targets while being pushed to... Read more... |
Royal Marines: Mission Afghanistan, Channel 5Tuesday, 31 January 2012
As if by way of riposte to Birdsong’s ever-so-pensive treatment of late, last night’s Royal Marines: Mission Afghanistan brought warfare back to the 21st century with an uncompromising thump. In Episode 1: Deadly Underfoot, Chris Terrill joined Lima... Read more... |
Bombay BeachMonday, 30 January 2012
I can’t help thinking of Mad Men when watching the opening sequence of Alma Har’el’s marvellous documentary Bombay Beach. Newsreel footage from the 1950s excitedly trumpets the “miracle in the desert” of the Salton Sea, formed by accident when the... Read more... |
Patience (After Sebald)Friday, 27 January 2012
Diehard Sebaldians may seek to retrace the footsteps that formed the basis of WG Sebald’s meditative masterpiece The Rings of Saturn. Or they may choose to watch Grant Gee’s film tribute instead. Patience (After Sebald) takes as its fulcrum the... Read more... |
The World Against Apartheid, BBC FourWednesday, 25 January 2012
When I opened my e-nvitation to write up last night’s The World Against Apartheid, I was not expecting it to come bedecked with GoogleAds for hen parties, roller discos, and custom-made birthday invitations (keyword: "part/y", one assumes). Only 20... Read more... |
Putin, Russia and the West, BBC TwoFriday, 20 January 2012
“Who is Mr Putin?” That was the question being bandied about by journalists and Kremlin watchers in the months after Boris Yeltsin’s out-of-the-blue New Year’s Eve 1999 resignation. Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB operative in East Germany, was prominent in... Read more... |
Horizon: Playing God, BBC TwoWednesday, 18 January 2012
“So you’re telling me that somewhere on this farm there’s an animal that’s part spider and part something else?” No, this isn’t a snatch of dialogue from the climax of a shlocky B-movie. These words were spoken calmly if sceptically by biologist... Read more... |
Freddie Flintoff: Hidden Side of Sport, BBC OneThursday, 12 January 2012
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... Read more... |
DVD: Project NimFriday, 06 January 2012
The domesticating instinct runs deep: humankind cannot bear too much animality and the wilderness shrinks daily and exponentially. We love to see animals as if they were human: we’re victims of the anthropomorphising compulsion, to coin a phrase for... Read more... |
The Many Faces of Dame Judi Dench, BBC TwoSaturday, 31 December 2011
It's interesting to consider at what point in someone's career does he or she become a national treasure - as Alan Bennett once so scathingly remarked, “If you live to be 90 in England and can still eat a boiled egg they think you deserve the Nobel... Read more... |
