Wales
The Accident, Channel 4 review - Sarah Lancashire leads another bleak but gripping dramaFriday, 25 October 2019I wouldn’t want to live in Jack Thorne’s head. Nor Sarah Lancashire’s, for that matter. The Accident is Thorne’s latest four-part drama, and the final instalment in his grim and gripping trilogy of shows for Channel 4. The Accident’s predecessors... Read more... |
Niall Griffiths: Broken Ghost review - Welsh visions of hope and lossSunday, 18 August 2019The trend-hopping taste-makers who run British literary publishing have lately decided that “working-class” writing merits a small dole of their precious time and cash. To assess how long this latest patronising fad may last, check out the... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, Episode 4 Series 2, BBC One review - murders aplentyWednesday, 14 August 2019Life on the Welsh coast isn’t getting any easier: defendant Madlen was found guilty of murder, husband Evan was coming home from prison, and Faith had just given Steve Baldini a rather uncomfortable snog on the beach. She’s probably pining for that... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, Series 2, BBC One review - family misfortunesWednesday, 24 July 2019It was a year ago that BBC One scored a smash hit with the first series of Keeping Faith, but as series two opens 18 months have passed since Faith Howells’s husband Evan (Bradley Freegard) disappeared and triggered a traumatic chain reaction of... Read more... |
Gwen review - gothic horror set in north WalesThursday, 18 July 2019This gothic yarn set in 1850s Snowdonia stars Maxine Peake as Elen. She’s left alone with two young daughters to manage an isolated farm when her husband goes off to war. Mysterious omens – a sheep’s heart filled with nails festoons the farm... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Best of British Transport FilmsTuesday, 28 May 2019The British Transport Commission was created in 1948 by the Atlee government, an ambitious attempt to organise rail, road and water transport under a single unwieldy umbrella (for a time it was the world’s largest employer, with a staff of over 900,... Read more... |
Manic Street Preachers, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - 20th anniversary tour lets underrated songs shineMonday, 27 May 2019Nothing brings home the difference between sequencing an album and sequencing a live show like going to see a classic album played in its entirety. And Manic Street Preachers’ This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours – described by frontman James Dean... Read more... |
My Extreme Drugs Diary, Channel 5 review - the tedium of taking heroinFriday, 03 May 2019Jacob has just managed to shoot up. No easy matter because his veins are, he says, non-usable, and are like those of an 80-year-old man. He’s in his twenties and has been on heroin for six years. Unusually, he works full time, has a car and a flat... Read more... |
CD: Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Yn Ol I AnnwnSunday, 24 February 2019Their music is a bit wizard-y. It’s certainly imbued with a pungent sense of mammoth weed. And the “bastard” is surely for the sheer, meaty rock’n’roll heft of the word (much as Motörhead used it to title an album). But don’t be fooled. Mammoth Weed... Read more... |
Yes is More: Charlotte Church’s Late Night Pop Dungeon, Tramshed - utterly convincingMonday, 18 February 2019Compared to Scotland, Welsh independence has yet to hit the mainstream. The idea has been mostly supported by the Welsh-speaking population, with opinion polls hovering around 19 per cent. It’s fallen to Super Furry Animals keyboardist Cian Ciaran... Read more... |
Blue, Chapter Arts Centre review - heartbreak in the family homeFriday, 08 February 2019What's worse than grieving? That all-consuming loss. For those that have experienced it, nothing really comes close. It starts to bug Thomas (Jordan Bernarde, main picture second right) during his visit to the Williams household. Recently bereaved... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, BBC One, series finale review - we need to talk about EvanFriday, 31 August 2018It’s been a long haul for Keeping Faith. The drama was shot in Welsh and English simultaneously, and premiered in the former with subtitles on S4C at the back end of 2017. It switched to the latter language on BBC One Wales earlier this year. Word... Read more... |