TV drama
Injustice, ITV1Monday, 06 June 2011
Fantastic! A new drama series in which the hero isn't a detective. Instead, William Travers (James Purefoy) is a criminal barrister who (after some sort of traumatic, nervous-breakdown-provoking experience we don't know much about yet) has moved... Read more... |
Exile, BBC OneWednesday, 04 May 2011
In a week unfeasibly packed with new drama across the BBC and ITV, the three-part Exile may prove to be the one that lingers longest. It was a thriller and a detective story, but what gave it its formidable grip was the way the central mystery was... Read more... |
United, BBC TwoSunday, 24 April 2011
As the makers of The Kennedys discovered recently, turning history into TV drama can be like locking yourself in the stocks and inviting all-comers to hurl coconuts at your head. This dramatisation of the 1950s Manchester United team and its... Read more... |
DVD: Alan Plater at ITVMonday, 18 April 2011
Seven works are collected on this sampler of the formidably prolific Plater’s television writing - a soupçon from a broth that is rich, flavoursome, and usually satisfying. Though omitting anything from The Stars Look Down, The Good Companions, Get... Read more... |
Monroe, Series Finale, ITV1/ Rubicon, BBC FourThursday, 14 April 2011
So Monroe reached the end of series one, and I still couldn't read what its tone was supposed to be. Some artsdesk readers have expressed enthusiasm for the theme tune, but I find its jogging Celtic jauntiness symptomatic of Monroe's wider... Read more... |
Lewis, ITV1Sunday, 10 April 2011
Read Adam Sweeting's review of "Intelligent Design", the last-ever episode of LewisAlthough its steepling body count is almost enough to rival the trail of carnage in The Walking Dead (which rose from the grave on 5 last night after its original... Read more... |
The Kennedys, HistoryThursday, 07 April 2011
It's unlikely that this soap-esque miniseries about America's most notorious political clan will stir up the kind of furore in Britain that has engulfed it in the States. Over there, merely to mention the Kennedys seems to conjure up visions of a... Read more... |
Silk, Series Finale, BBC OneTuesday, 29 March 2011
Will Silk make it to series two, or will it feel the wrath of BBC One's mad axeman, Danny Cohen? The former, we fervently hope. Despite some implausible incidents and occasionally silly plotlines, Peter Moffat's battling-barristers drama reached... Read more... |
Wild at Heart, ITV1/ McQueen and I, More4Monday, 28 February 2011
Now nearing the end of its sixth series, Wild at Heart has quietly parked itself in the middle of the Sunday-evening schedules, where it goes about its task of hoovering up ratings with single-minded efficiency. Last week's debut of South Riding on... Read more... |
Zen axed by BBC OneThursday, 24 February 2011
Horror and dismay have greeted BBC One controller Danny Cohen’s decision to axe detective drama series Zen, after the network aired a solitary three-part series in January which pulled a very respectable 5.7m viewers per episode. Shot amid succulent... Read more... |
South Riding, BBC OneMonday, 21 February 2011
You can see why the BBC's drama gurus wanted to have a go at remaking South Riding, which last came around in 1974's hit version from Yorkshire Television. It has drama, romance, social conflict, lofty ideals and looks a bit like a parable for our... Read more... |
Beyond good and evil: Silk goes to courtSunday, 20 February 2011
The legal drama has become a staple of stage and screen, for a variety of excellent reasons. All of human life really is there, from love and hate to good and evil, crammed into the claustrophobic cockpit of the courtroom. Adding an extra squirt... Read more... |
