fri 01/08/2025

tv

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, BBC One review - love, death and hell on the Burma railway

Adam Sweeting

Readers of Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning novel will be familiar with its themes of war, extreme suffering, ageing, memory, fidelity and infidelity, as it roves over the decades from World War Two to the late Eighties.

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The Waterfront, Netflix review - fish, drugs and rock'n'roll

Adam Sweeting

You wouldn’t really want to belong to the Buckley family, a star-crossed dynasty who run their fishing business out of Havenport, North Carolina. As Bree Buckley (daughter of Harlan and Belle) tells recently-discovered family member Shawn, “I wouldn’t wish us on anybody.”

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Ballard, Prime Video review - there's something rotten in the LAPD

Adam Sweeting

Following the success of its screen version of Michael Connelly’s veteran detective Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver, Prime Video aims to make lightning strike twice by televising Connelly’s series of Renée Ballard books. Like Bosch, Ballard works for the LAPD, but has been demoted from the Robbery-Homicide division after reporting a sexual assault by her supervisor, Robert Olivas.

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Bookish, U&Alibi review - sleuthing and skulduggery in a bomb-battered London

Adam Sweeting

As a sometime writer of Poirot, Sherlock and Christmas ghost stories, Mark Gatiss is no stranger to enigmatic crimes and bizarre occurrences set in carefully-recreated versions of the past. He revisits similar themes in Bookish, his new series about a second-hand bookseller in post-World War Two London who is evidently concealing some hidden depths.

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Too Much, Netflix - a romcom that's oversexed, and over here

Helen Hawkins

A thirtysomething American woman with wavering self-confidence, a tendency to talk too much and a longing for married bliss with Mr Darcy at his gorgeous country pile tries to reset her life post-breakup with a grown-up new job in London. Welcome to Bridget Jones country as seen through the lens of New Yorker Lena Dunham. 

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Insomnia, Channel 5 review - a chronicle of deaths foretold

Adam Sweeting

A mixture of legal drama, medical mystery and psychological thriller with creepy supernatural overtones, Insomnia sometimes seems to be trying to cram too much in, but it’s well worth sticking with it to the end to reap the full benefits.

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Live Aid at 40: When Rock'n'Roll Took on the World, BBC Two review - how Bob Geldof led pop's battle against Ethiopian famine

Adam Sweeting

“Bob’s not the kind of guy you can say no to,” said Sting, reminiscing about the origins of 1984’s Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. “He’s persistent.”

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Hill, Sky Documentaries review - how Damon Hill battled his demons

Adam Sweeting

Some world champion racing drivers make it look effortless, but it was never that way for Damon Hill. His path to the championship he won in 1996 had been fraught with difficulties, including not just his increasingly ill-tempered on-track battle with Michael Schumacher, but also the sometimes less-than-wholehearted support he received from the Williams team. Indeed, the team had already announced they were replacing him before he won the 1996 title.

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Outrageous, U&Drama review - skilfully-executed depiction of the notorious Mitford sisters

Helen Hawkins

If somebody submitted a treatment for a new costume drama series set in the 1930s in which not just one but two fictitious sisters from a fading aristocratic family pair off with leading fascists, while the cousin warning them off these liaisons is a future British PM, the pitch meeting probably wouldn’t last that long. 

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Prost, BBC 4 review - life and times of the driver they called 'The Professor'

Adam Sweeting

With Brad Pitt’s much-trumpeted F1 movie about to screech noisily into the multiplexes, it’s not a bad time to be reminded of the career of one of the sport’s indisputable greats.

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