sun 28/09/2025

tv

David Bowie: The Last Five Years, BBC Two

Jasper Rees

It’s been 12 months since the news guy wept and told us: David Bowie, ever out in front, became the first to depart in the year of musical mortality 2016. After the initial lamentations, the memorial tributes have been a mixed bag. Best was the life story stitched together for Radio 4 from a vast back catalogue of audio interviews.

Read more...

Taboo, BBC One

Adam Sweeting

The arrival of this oppressively atmospheric 19th-century historical drama is being trailed as the BBC's bold attempt to break the Saturday night stranglehold of soaps and talent shows. No doubt they were encouraged by the success of all those Saturday night Scandi dramas on BBC Four, and if Taboo falls short it won't be because of a lack of stellar names.

Read more...

The World's Most Extraordinary Homes, BBC Two

Marina Vaizey

This was the first of four programmes looking at houses made of extraordinary materials in various environments, some extreme. We began with "Mountain", and further explorations are promised to "Coast", "Forest" and "Underground".

Read more...

Unforgotten, Series 2, ITV

Adam Sweeting

Historic unsolved murders have become their own mini-genre, with the likes of Cold Case lurking in the small print of the schedules and Silent Witness still going strong in its 20th series. A hit the first time out in 2015, Unforgotten is back with a new investigation of another mystery cadaver.

Read more...

No Offence, Series 2, Channel 4

Veronica Lee

We're back at Friday Street, the crumbling cop shop on the wrong side of Manchester, where DI Viv Deering marshals her squad of anarchic misfits to fight crime. Paul Abbott's rude but not crude police comedy drama was a great hit first time round and managed to be riotously unPC while unravelling a complicated serial murder case.

Read more...

Sherlock, Series 4, BBC One

Jasper Rees

Sherlock’s back in the here and now, and not before time. Twelve months ago, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes laid down his mobile phone to return to Edwardian London for a plate-spinning deer-stalking mind-warping one-off. The Abominable Bride, though good in parts, caused a mass outbreak of head-scratching.

Read more...

Judi Dench: All the World's Her Stage, BBC Two

Mark Sanderson

The hyperbole began as soon as the voiceover did: “For most of us Judi Dench is M…” So much for Bernard Lee. The implication was that if you can remember him, then Judi Dench: All the World’s Her Stage was not for you. After all, she played James Bond’s boss for 17 years – until, at Daniel Craig’s suggestion, the sky fell in on her in Skyfall.

Read more...

To Walk Invisible, BBC One

Matthew Wright

Yorkshire-born screenwriter Sally Wainwright has carved a distinguished niche for herself as chronicler of that brooding, beautiful region’s social and familial dramas.

Read more...

Best of 2016: TV

Adam Sweeting

If there's one big question hanging over the television industry, it's "how long can the old broadcast networks survive in the new era of subscription and downloading services?" No doubt there will be a variety of answers, with different hybrid arrangements and partnerships springing up to deliver programming across multiple formats.

Read more...

Bruce Springsteen: In His Own Words, Channel 4

Veronica Lee

A 90-minute biographical documentary about Bruce Springsteen, you may think, is for Springsteen fans only.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Music Reissues Weekly: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy - The Mo...

“It's a Happening Thing,” January 1967’s debut single from...

Goldscheider, Brother Tree Sound, Kings Place review - music...

Last night’s concert at Kings Place was a programme of...

The Billionaire Inside Your Head, Hampstead Theatre review -...

What would it be like to be driven by OCD urges into idolising Elon Musk and aspiring to be one of his tribe of tech bros? In his debut...

theartsdesk Q&A: composer Donghoon Shin on his new conce...

Donghoon Shin has a taste for the esoteric – a love of labyrinths, literary puzzles, and contradictory aspects of the self. One of his favourite...

Doja Cat's 'Vie' starts well but soon tails o...

Doja Cat is a fascinating one-off. She’s a rap-centric...

Lacrima, Barbican review - riveting, lucid examination of th...

So often the focus – in the coverage of a royal wedding – is the story of the woman wearing the bridal dress. While every...

Joanna Pocock: Greyhound review - on the road again

Joanna Pocock’s second full-length book, Greyhound, tells the story of a single journey made and remade. In 2006, after the death of her...

Entertaining Mr Sloane, Young Vic review - funny, flawed but...

Playwright Joe Orton was a merry prankster. His main work – such as Loot (1965) and What the Butler Saw...

Helleur-Simcock, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester r...

Rachel Helleur-Simcock’s first appearance with the Hallé after appointment as leader of its cello section was auspicious – she became the soloist...