thu 12/12/2024

Toby Jones

Mr Bates vs The Post Office, ITV1 review - a star-packed account of an incendiary story

There isn’t a troupe officially called the Worshipful Company of British Character Actors, but there probably should be, given the sterling service it does for the nation, acting in prestige TV dramas based on real events. Toby Jones and Monica...

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Danny Boy, BBC Two review - when law and war collide

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...

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Don't Forget the Driver, BBC Two review - trying to beat the Bognor blues

Bognor Regis was once renowned for its restorative climate and was much favoured by George V (he awarded the town the “Regis” tag), but times have changed if Toby Jones’s new series is anything to go by. The Bognor we see in BBC Two's Don't Forget...

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LFF 2017: Journey's End review - classic play becomes cracking film

There have been several film and TV versions of RC Sherriff’s World War One play since it debuted on the London stage in 1928, but Saul Dibb’s new incarnation, shown at London Film Festival, is testament to the lingering potency of the piece. Armed...

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DVD/Blu-ray: Anthropoid

Let’s explain the peculiar title first: Operation Anthropoid was the code name given by the Czech Resistance for the planned assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague during World War Two. The events have been portrayed on film before, a notable...

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The Witness for the Prosecution, BBC One

A year ago to the day the BBC laid on a festive slaughter of Agatha Christie characters. And Then There Were None had the look of a well-dressed abattoir as her victims toppled like ninepins at the hands of an invisible slayer. The scriptwriter...

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The Secret Agent, BBC One

Based on an abortive real-life attempt to blow up the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1894, Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent has sometimes been held up as a harbinger of the kind of terrorist attacks the world has been subjected to by the...

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Tale of Tales

The earliest known versions of Rapunzel and Cinderella appeared in an Italian compendium of fairytales known as the Pentamerone. They were collated by Neapolitan courtier Giambattista Basile and published in the 1630s after his death. The 50-strong...

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10 Questions for Actor Toby Jones

What is it about Toby Jones? A decade ago he had a stroke of luck when a film producer spotted his physical similarity to Truman Capote and cast him as the lead in Infamous. The luck wasn’t unadulterated. Philip Seymour Hoffman played the same role...

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DVD: By Our Selves

There’s nothing more affecting in a 2015 British film than Freddie Jones reciting John Clare’s “I Am” in By Our Selves, the documentary scene that concludes Andrew Kötting’s semi-fictional paean to the Romantic poet of enclosure-traumatised agrarian...

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Marvellous, BBC Two

Marvellous reviews itself in its title. The story of Neil Baldwin starring Toby Jones was – and is, because you should catch it while you can on iPlayer – simply marvellous. As a dramatic character Neil Baldwin could be mistaken for...

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Circle Mirror Transformation, Royal Court Theatre Local

With site-specific shows it’s a natural urge to start by reviewing the location. And I’m not strong enough to resist this temptation. So here goes. This new piece by American playwright Annie Baker takes place at the Rose Lipman building in...

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