Sky
Adam Sweeting
The pre-publicity has been spinning this saga of the notorious Renaissance family as a kind of origin story for The Sopranos. I suppose you could argue that Rodrigo Borgia, like Tony Soprano, was in the waste management business, as he himself suggested when he took the Papal throne as Alexander VI: "God has chosen us as a new broom to sweep the Vatican clean of corruption."But Rodrigo is undoubtedly aiming higher than a few sleazy rackets in New Jersey. As the incantation went at his spectacular coronation in Rome, "You are father of kings and monarchs, lord of the globe, earthly resident of Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Watching bookaholic punters tramping down windswept country lanes in hiking boots, anoraks and rucksacks instantly alerts you to the singular quality of the Hay Festival, though it's surprising that nobody has grasped the glaring opportunity to set up a tent selling Alfred Wainwright's fell-walking guides and Kendal Mint Cake. But where else can you find such a high density of starry names and media taste-makers in a soggy field on the Welsh border?Even more remarkable is that you can't get a signal on an O2 mobile phone for miles, and the sense of entering a mysterious dimension where Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The flying Twitter fragments said more about The Wedding than the battalions of experts, "palace insiders", historians and friends ever could (couldn't somebody have put a bag over Simon "infinite loop" Schama's head and had him bundled away from the BBC studio in the boot of a car?) Everybody seemed to adore Kate's dress. Some suggested that princesses Eugenie and Beatrice were in drag. "The Royal Family is BACK", tweeted Piers Morgan. "#proudtobeenglish" added former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan. "Harry's thinking, how did I not end up in a carriage with Pippa Middleton?" Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
According to her website, Martina Cole is "the person who tells it like it really is". If it's really like this dramatisation of her 1997 novel The Runaway, it's unrelentingly brutal, squalid and frightening, a televisual blow to the head from a blunt instrument. Perhaps the fact that the series was shot on a giant set in South Africa helps to account for its strange atmosphere of reality assembled from an Ikea-style flatpack.The Runaway of the title is, or is going to be in episode two, Cathy Connor (Joanna Vanderham). It's the early Sixties, and Cathy has been brought up in London's East Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It would take the cunning of the insane to invent the British railway network. Privatised 18 years ago, it offers the worst of all worlds - persistent overcrowding and cancellations, outdated rolling stock and fares rising vertiginously as services grow steadily more uncomfortable, while the taxpayer still has to stump up billions to keep this wheezing Heath Robinson nightmare functioning at all.While public outrage has been hosed over the bankers and their grotesque bonuses, it tends to go unnoticed that rail bosses are also dab hands at lining their own pockets at public expense. For Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Yes, the Sky 1 drama department is trying to elbow some room on the national sofa and their policy with Mad Dogs is to cast it to the very hilt. Thus John Simm, Philip Glenister, Max Beesley and Marc Warren, playing four old lags who’ve sort of lost touch over the years, board a plane for Spain, summoned for a nostalgic bunfight by another compadre. Like all gentlemen of a certain age let off the leash to play, they were full of cock-of-the-walk swagger as they marched out of the airport in shades, wielding the videocams they’d been given for the trip. However, you knew it was all going up Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
They've remade everything else, so what took them so long to get around to Hawaii Five-0? Maybe the exotic Hawaiian locations of JJ Abrams's Lost helped to trigger flashbacks of Steve McGarrett & co, which would explain why Abrams's henchmen Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are co-producers of the new Five-0. And why Daniel Dae Kim, who played Jin in Lost, reappears here as Chin Ho Kelly.The refreshing thing about Five-0 (revisited) is that while it has been given a brisk 21st-century spring clean, with international terrorism, people-smuggling and a blast of ultra-modern spook Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
We were saddened by the absence of such artsdesk favourites as Spooks and Sherlock from the list of winners of last night's National Television Awards at the O2 Arena, who were all chosen by the public's votes. Of course, we share the national euphoria at the news of Bruce Forsyth's Special Recognition Award for his... er... interminable career. "This would be a good night to announce my retirement but I'm not bloody going to," the Strictly Come Dancing host told disappointed reporters. We would also send our congratulations to Top Entertainment Presenters Ant and Dec if we knew which one was Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Thirty years after the original series came to the end of its 12-year history, Hawaii Five-0 is about to burst back onto British TV. The new-look Five-0 kicked off in September last year on the American CBS network, and will debut on Sky1/Sky1 HD in the UK in February.A pilot for a new Hawaii Five-0 was made in 1996, starring Gary Busey and Russell Wong, but it never aired. This time, the chemistry feels right and American audiences have been enthusiastic. The new version uses several of the same principal character names from the original, including of course Steve McGarrett (originally Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Sky hasn't generally been synonymous with top TV drama, but its new channel, Sky Atlantic HD, is aiming to change that. Launching on 1 February, the channel has been built around Sky's deal with the American HBO network, which means viewers will get access to the entire history of The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City and The Wire.New HBO product such as Treme (about New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) and the Prohibition-era gangster series Boardwalk Empire (starring Steve Buscemi and with a pilot episode directed by Martin Scorsese) will lend Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
“Television is pretty awful at the moment,” said Eileen Atkins the other week. “Is that because I'm getting old?” Age wouldn’t dare to wither Dame Eileen, of course, who has just bounced back in fine sparky fettle in the BBC's remake of Upstairs Downstairs.She’s right – lots of television is awful. Always has been. On the other hand, there's now so much of it on so many channels that with a bit of judicious schedule-surfing and deft deployment of the various on-demand services now available, you can almost certainly find enough worthwhile stuff to stretch through the week. Also, it' Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The American networks have so far been able to resist the stick-insectish charms of David Tennant, but the BBC would probably start up a new channel just for him if he asked them. In this new four-parter, his comeback appearance after handing over the keys of the TARDIS to Matt Smith, Tennant plays Dave Tyler, a successful Glasgow photographer married to teaching assistant Rita (Laura Fraser). They have a ramblingly large house full of kids and a dog, and live one of those exuberantly chaotic lives that only exist in TV drama, where domestic duties and hectic leisure activities magically co- Read more ...