tue 05/11/2024

TV reviews, news & interviews

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Disney+ review - the Boss grows older defiantly

Adam Sweeting

Director Thom Zimny has become the audio-visual Boswell to Bruce Springsteen’s Samuel Johnson, having made documentaries about the making of Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, Springsteen On Broadway and several more. Road Diary takes as its theme Springsteen’s 2023-4 tour, and uses that as a platform for an often emotional survey of his 50 year history with the E Street Band.

Industry, BBC One review - bold, addictive saga about corporate culture now

Helen Hawkins

All three seasons of Industry are now on iPlayer, and after watching the most recent one and then backtracking for another look at the other two, I am still in two minds about it. With its forensic display of a toxic world where people are viewed as “capital” and anomie is the prevailing mode, is it masterly drama or an overheated mess? 

Rivals, Disney+ review - adultery, skulduggery...

Adam Sweeting

Delirium has greeted Disney’s eight-part adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1988 novel Rivals (part of her Rutshire Chronicles series).Perhaps it’s...

Disclaimer, Apple TV+ review - a misfiring...

Helen Hawkins

It seems to be silly season for big-name directors. First, Coppola’s Megalopolis and Steve McQueen’s Blitz: why? Now Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer:...

Ludwig, BBC One review - entertaining spin on the...

Helen Hawkins

The latest incarnation of David Mitchell, TV actor, looks at first sight much like the familar one from Peep Show and Back. Not a pufflepant in sight...

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The Hardacres, Channel 5 review - a fishy tale of upward mobility

Adam Sweeting

Will everyday saga of Yorkshire folk strike a popular note?

Joan, ITV1 review - the roller-coaster career of a 1980s jewel thief

Adam Sweeting

Brilliant performance by Sophie Turner as 'The Godmother'

The Penguin, Sky Atlantic review - power, corruption, lies and prosthetics

Adam Sweeting

Colin Farrell makes a beast of himself in Batman spin-off

A Very Royal Scandal, Prime Video review - a fairly sound reimagining, but to what end?

Helen Hawkins

The acting is first-rate, but it has no satisfying dramatic goal

Nightsleeper, BBC One review - strangers on a runaway train

Adam Sweeting

Six-part thriller goes off the rails

The Perfect Couple, Netflix review - an inconvenient death ruins lavish Nantucket wedding

Adam Sweeting

Liev Schreiber steals the show in adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand's novel

Sambre: Anatomy of a Crime, BBC Four review - satisfying novelistic retelling of a French true crime saga

Helen Hawkins

Compelling story of a rapist who hid in plain sight for 30 years

Kaos, Netflix review - playing fast and profuse with the Greek myths

David Nice

A rainbow of acting talent, but too many ideas thrown into the labyrinth

Slow Horses, Season 4, Apple TV+ review - Gary Oldman returns as the 'gross and inappropriate' Jackson Lamb

Adam Sweeting

Latest instalment of the Slough House saga exerts a vice-like grip

theartsdesk Q&A: David Morrissey on (among other things) the return of 'Sherwood' and 'Daddy Issues'

Adam Sweeting

Liverpool-born actor reflects on a journey from Everyman Theatre to film and TV stardom

Sherwood, Series 2, BBC One review - maybe time isn't such a great healer

Adam Sweeting

Gripping continuation of James Graham's Nottinghamshire saga

Freddie Flintoff: Field of Dreams on Tour, BBC One review - a passage to India with the Preston irregulars

Adam Sweeting

Cricket helps Fred overcome near-death experience

The Instigators, Apple TV+ review - Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are back on the Beantown beat

Adam Sweeting

Doug Liman's black-comedy thriller is lifted by its high-octane cast

Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple, Sky Documentaries review - the New Jersey rocker with many strings to his bow

Adam Sweeting

Bill Teck's film reveals that Van Zandt wasn't just Bruce Springsteen's right-hand man

Time Bandits, Apple TV+ review - larky expanded rerun of the Gilliam/Palin classic

Helen Hawkins

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement give children's sci-fi a human touch

Lady in the Lake, Apple TV+ review - a multi-layered Baltimore murder mystery

Adam Sweeting

Natalie Portman stars in screen adaptation of Laura Lippman's novel

The Jetty, BBC One review - lowlife in a Northern town

Adam Sweeting

Jenna Coleman stars in a dark tale of abuse and exploitation

The Turkish Detective, BBC Two review - a bad business in the Bosphorus

Adam Sweeting

Barbara Nadel's Inspector Ikmen novels reach the screen

The Night Caller, Channel 5 review - all he hears is radio ga ga

Adam Sweeting

Robert Glenister and Sean Pertwee star in smartly-written thriller

I Am: Celine Dion, Prime Video review - inside the superstar singer's living hell

Adam Sweeting

Shattering documentary makes agonising viewing

theartsdesk Q&A: Lucie Shorthouse is flying high with 'We Are Lady Parts' and 'Rebus'

Adam Sweeting

An actor's progress from Cambridge Footlights to 'Everybody's Talking About Jamie', a female Muslim punk band and crime-fighting in Edinburgh

Presumed Innocent, Apple TV+ review - you read the book and saw the movie...

Adam Sweeting

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in absorbing TV adaptation of Scott Turow's legal thriller

Eric, Netflix review - a fairytale of New York

Adam Sweeting

Abi Morgan's drama is a strange mix of urban grime and magic realism

theartsdesk Q&A: Matthew Modine on 'Hard Miles', 40 years in showbusiness and safer cycling

Adam Sweeting

An eventful journey from 'Full Metal Jacket' to 'Oppenheimer' and 'Stranger Things'

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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