fri 23/05/2025

TV reviews, news & interviews

Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality of deaf people's experience

Helen Hawkins

In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV detective series, the spotlight has now landed on Canterbury. Code of Silence frequently inserts a dramatic aerial shot of the city, its streets radiating out from the towering ecclesiastical landmark at its centre, to remind us where we are.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103, BBC One review - new dramatisation of the horrific Lockerbie terror attack

Adam Sweeting

The appalling destruction of Pan Am’s flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 was put under the spotlight in January this year in Sky Atlantic’s Lockerbie: A Search for Truth. This focused on the dogged and agonising search for truth by Jim Swire (played by Colin Firth), whose daughter Flora was killed in the attack, and raised a host of possibilities and theories about who did it and why.

theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a...

Adam Sweeting

If you compiled a list of favourite TV series from the last couple of decades, you’d find that Zoë Telford has appeared in most of them. The Thick of...

The Trunk, Netflix review - stylish, noir-ish...

Helen Hawkins

The trunk in the title is a luxury item, worth 50 million won – just north of £27,000 – shown sinking in deep water in the opening credits. It weaves...

Malpractice, ITV1, Series 2 review - fear and...

Adam Sweeting

Following on from the first series of Malpractice in 2023, this second season again probes into issues of medical malfeasance and institutional...

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Fake, ITV1 review - be careful what you wish for

Adam Sweeting

Australian drama probes the terrors of middle-aged matchmaking

Formula E: Driver, Prime Video review - inside the world's first zero-carbon sport

Adam Sweeting

F1's electric baby brother get its own documentary series

Flintoff, Disney+ review - tumultuous life and times of the great all-rounder

Adam Sweeting

John Dower's documentary is gritty, gruelling and uplifting

Your Friends & Neighbors, Apple TV+ review - in every dream home a heartache

Adam Sweeting

Jon Hamm finds his best role since 'Mad Men'

MobLand, Paramount+ review - more guns, goons and gangsters from Guy Ritchie

Adam Sweeting

High-powered cast impersonates the larcenous Harrigan dynasty

This City is Ours, BBC One review - civil war rocks family cocaine racket

Adam Sweeting

Terrific cast powers Stephen Butchard's Liverpool drug-ring saga

The Potato Lab, Netflix review - a K-drama with heart and wit

Helen Hawkins

Love among Korean potato-researchers is surprisingly funny and ideal for Janeites

Adolescence, Netflix review - Stephen Graham battles the phantom menace of the internet

Adam Sweeting

How antisocial networks lead to real-life tragedy

Drive to Survive, Season 7, Netflix review - speed, scandal and skulduggery in the pitlane

Adam Sweeting

The F1 documentary series is back on the pace

A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, ITV1 review - powerful dramatisation of the 1955 case that shocked the public

Adam Sweeting

Lucy Boynton excels as the last woman to be executed in Britain

Towards Zero, BBC One review - more entertaining parlour game than crime thriller

Helen Hawkins

The latest Agatha Christie adaptation is well cast and lavishly done but a tad too sedate

Bergerac, U&Drama review - the Jersey 'tec is born again after 34 years

Adam Sweeting

Damien Molony boldly follows in the hallowed footsteps of John Nettles

A Thousand Blows, Disney+ review - Peaky Blinders comes to Ripper Street?

Adam Sweeting

The prolific Steven Knight takes us back to a squalid Victorian London

Zero Day, Netflix review - can ex-President Robert De Niro save the Land of the Free?

Adam Sweeting

Panic and paranoia run amok as cyber-hackers wreak havoc

The White Lotus, Series 3, Sky Atlantic review - hit formula with few surprises but a new bewitching soundtrack

Helen Hawkins

Thailand hosts the latest bout of Mike White's satirical takedown of the rich and privileged

Hacks, Season 3, NOW review - acerbic showbiz comedy keeps up the good work

Adam Sweeting

Jean Smart's portrayal of Deborah Vance is an all-time classic

Surviving Black Hawk Down, Netflix review - the real story behind Ridley Scott's Oscar-winner

Adam Sweeting

Documentary series looks at the 1993 'Battle of Mogadishu' from both sides

Vietnam: The War That Changed America, Apple TV+ review - painful and poignant stories from a terrible conflict

Adam Sweeting

Fifty years later, the wounds still haven't healed

Paradise, Disney+ review - enigmatic drama with an unknown destination

Helen Hawkins

Dan Fogelman's new series has an excellent cast but a recycled premise

Brian and Maggie, Channel 4 review - Thatcherism's date with TV destiny

Adam Sweeting

James Graham's dramatisation of Brian Walden's fateful 1989 interview

Prime Target, Apple TV+ review - the appliance of science

Adam Sweeting

Boffins and baddies collide in Steve Thompson's complicated thriller

Out There, ITV1 review - drugs and thugs disfigure the Welsh landscape

Adam Sweeting

Martin Clunes stars in Ed Whitmore's smartly-written drama

What's the Matter with Tony Slattery?, BBC Two review - absorbing but troubling search for answers

Adam Sweeting

RIP TONY SLATTERY How mental illness cut short a brilliant showbusiness career

American Primeval, Netflix review - nightmare on the Wild Frontier

Adam Sweeting

Peter Berg's Western drama is grim but gripping

Footnote: a brief history of British TV

You could almost chart the history of British TV by following the career of ITV's Coronation Street, as it has ridden 50 years of social change, seen off would-be rivals, survived accusations of racism and learned to live alongside the BBC's EastEnders. But no single programme, or even strand of programmes, can encompass the astonishing diversity and creativity of TV-UK since BBC TV was officially born in 1932.

Nostalgists lament the demise of single plays like Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home or Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party, but drama series like The Jewel in the Crown, Edge of Darkness, Our Friends in the North, State of Play, the original Upstairs Downstairs or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will surely loom larger in history's rear-view mirror, while perhaps Julian Fellowes' surprise hit, Downton Abbey, heralds a new wave of the classic British costume drama. For that matter, indestructible comic creations like George Cole's Arthur Daley in Minder, Nigel Hawthorne's Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister, the Steptoes, Arthur Lowe and co in Dad's Army, John Cleese's Fawlty Towers or Only Fools and Horses insinuate themselves between the cracks of British life far more persuasively than the most earnest television documentary (at which Britain has become world-renowned).

British sci-fi will never out-gloss Hollywood monoliths like Battlestar Galactica, but Nigel Kneale's Quatermass stories are still influential 60 years later, and the reborn Doctor Who has been a creative coup for the BBC. British series from the Sixties like The Avengers, Patrick McGoohan's bizarre brainchild The Prisoner or The Saint (with the young Roger Moore) have bounced back as major influences on today's Hollywood, and re-echo through the BBC's enduringly successful Spooks.

Meanwhile, though British comedy depends more on maverick inspiration than the sleek industrialisation deployed by US television, that didn't stop Monty Python from becoming a global legend, or prevent Ricky Gervais being adopted as an American mascot. True, you might blame British TV (and Simon Cowell) for such monstrosities as The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent, but the entire planet has lapped them up. And we can console ourselves that Britain also gave the world Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, David Attenborough's epic nature series Life on Earth and The Blue Planet, as well as Kenneth Clark's Civilisation. The Arts Desk brings you overnight reviews and news of the best (and worst) of TV in Britain. Our writers include Adam Sweeting, Jasper Rees, Veronica Lee, Alexandra Coghlan, Fisun Güner, Josh Spero and Gerard Gilbert.

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