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The Living and the Dead, Series Finale, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 03 August 2016

If Ashley Pharoah's superior chiller began with its 19th century protagonist, Nathan Appleby, trying to apply science and reason to seemingly irrational events, by the end of this sixth and final episode he had strayed way beyond the outer limits. Not only had the murky past of the Somerset village of Shepzoy reared up in numerous terrifying manifestations, but Nathan and his wife Charlotte were also receiving vivid and disturbing flashes into the future.

Comment

The Girl from Ipanema: Brazil, Bossa Nova and the Beach, BBC Four

james Woodall Tuesday, 02 August 2016

Some years ago broadcaster Andy Kershaw introduced on BBC World Service radio a piece of Brazilian music with this blunt dismissal: “When I hear a track by, say, Gilberto Gil, I tell myself: ‘Right, time to take the lift and go to bed’.” It wasn’t a terribly joined-up complaint, but (in Kershaw-speak at least) it made sense.

Comment

Masters of the Pacific Coast: The Tribes of the American Northwest, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey Friday, 29 July 2016

The American northwest is gorgeous: endless lakes, limitless ocean, mountains, forests, overwhelming blue skies in deepest summer, mists and of course rain, in one of the wettest places on earth – 4 metres of rain annually. Here were hundreds of islands too, archipelagos in a land almost infinitely rich in resources, from the Alaskan Panhandle and British Columbia south to Washington State.

Naked Attraction, Channel 4

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 26 July 2016

Remember Sex Box? Perhaps you were wisely watching paint dry that night instead. Sex Box was part of Channel 4’s ongoing commitment to making the nation’s toes curl in horror. It involved couples getting it eponymously on in the titular container, after which they emerged blinking into the studio lights to give a blow by blow account to Mariella Frostrup. As if that wasn’t barrel-scrapingly unBritish enough, here for your viewing pleasure is Naked Attraction.

Saddam Goes to Hollywood, Channel 4 / Keith Richards: The Origin of the Species, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Monday, 25 July 2016

Incredible but true, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein really did hire a largely-British film crew to come to his country and make a movie called Clash of Loyalties, about how Iraq freed itself from British influence in the 1920s and blossomed into an independent state. It never made it as far as a cinema release, but the footage was recently rediscovered in a garage in Surrey by its producer, Latief Jorephani (pictured below).

Imagine... Danger! Cornelia Parker, BBC One

Marina Vaizey Wednesday, 20 July 2016

Squash! Bulldoze! Blow-Up! Tie Up! Break-Up! Re-Build! There is practically nothing the artist Cornelia Parker won’t and can’t do with found materials, offcuts, the discarded and the recycled, not to mention tieing up Rodin’s The Kiss at the Tate in miles of string.

The Secret Agent, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Monday, 18 July 2016

Based on an abortive real-life attempt to blow up the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1894, Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent has sometimes been held up as a harbinger of the kind of terrorist attacks the world has been subjected to by the likes of Baader-Meinhof, Al Qaeda and Isis. Doubtless this was part of the BBC's motivation for making this new three-part dramatisation.

Comment

The Hunter, All4

Matthew Wright Saturday, 16 July 2016

Crime and detective drama often shows us who we think we are. Despite typically baroque plotting, and murder statistics in which the sleepiest of rural settings shades downtown Aleppo, there’s a sense that in how we respond to poisoning, stabbing and strangling, a quintessential national characteristic emerges. Be it Sarah Lund, Hercule Poirot, or any of Ray Winstone’s gravelly felons, television’s criminals and detectives hold a mirror to the soul.

The Banker's Guide to the Art Market, BBC Four

Florence Hallett Friday, 15 July 2016

This programme was not ironic, humorous or in any way lighthearted. I’m fairly sure of that, but worry that perhaps I’ve missed the joke. A withering take-down or a meaty exposé of the corruption and excess of the extremely wealthy would have served a purpose, but this was neither.

The Job Interview/My Worst Job, Channel 4

Barney Harsent Wednesday, 13 July 2016

First appearances can be deceptive. You should notice them, take heed of them and then park them. This was the advice of Phillipa Darcy who, along with her daughter, Bertie, was interviewing candidates for a job as assistant manager for Whickam House, an estate that doubles as a wedding venue, in Channel 4’s latest fixed-rig embarrassment machine.