mon 29/09/2025

tv

Dominic Sandbrook: Let Us Entertain You, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting

Critic and popular historian Dominic Sandbook understands the power of the soundbite, so he supplied one of his own to sum up his new series: "We do still make one thing better than anybody else – we make stories."

Read more...

Imagine… Antony Gormley: Being Human, BBC One

Marina Vaizey

Metal figures on the foreshore of Crosby Beach, Liverpool, set against a sunset, signify the preoccupations of Antony Gormley. The sculptor has been concerned consistently with the human figure, manifested in metal – lead or iron – casts of his own body.

Read more...

Simply Nigella, BBC Two

Matthew Wright

TV chefs are like the characters in a favourite band, each one with their newsworthy quirk. There’s the matey one, the posh one, the sweary one, the mumsy one, and the light-fingered one. Then there’s Nigella, the kittenish one, best known for licking her fingers with a lingering thoroughness rarely seen on family television. (She was once the Oxford graduate best known as deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times.

Read more...

The Dresser, BBC Two

Matt Wolf

The prospect of Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins acting together for the first time in their storied careers in Richard Eyre's BBC adaptation of The Dresser was one of those mouth-watering propositions to sit alongside DeNiro and Pacino on screen in Heat and the stage reunion of Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench in The Breath of Life.

Read more...

BalletBoyz at the Roundhouse, BBC Four

Hanna Weibye

What I want to know is: has there been a major upsurge in boys taking contemporary dance classes this year? And if not, why not? With the amount of male dancing in the media these days, the excuse that boys lack dancing role models just won't wash any more.

Read more...

Girl in a Band: Tales from the Rock'n'Roll Front Line, BBC Four

Lisa-Marie Ferla

For women making music, it’s probably a tough call to decide on what is more tedious: being asked what it’s like being a girl in a band, or being grouped with other female musicians, regardless of genre, for magazine features and documentaries on Women in Rock.

Read more...

The Face of Britain by Simon Schama, BBC Two

Marina Vaizey

This was the fifth and last in a series of hour-long programmes amounting to a vivid, varied and extraordinarily lively history of Britain. Although ostensibly a history of portraiture, the images have been hooks for Simon Schama, that most ubiquitous historian who bears a rather charming resemblance to Tigger – very bouncy, very chatty, very enthusiastic, a little self-regarding – to subtly engage us in a journey through the political and social landmarks of British history.

Read more...

Catastrophe, Series 2, Channel 4

Jasper Rees

There’s a baby boom in sitcom. This week two of last year’s best comedies return for second helpings, each with a child in tow. In Detectorists (BBC Two on Thursday) Andy is out in the field panning for gold with a small sweet addition. But first Catastrophe is back – and the title holds good.

Read more...

Jekyll & Hyde, ITV / From Darkness, Series Finale, BBC One

Adam Sweeting

It's the age of the prequel, sequel and origin story, and the ingenious Charlie Higson has decided that now is the time to give Robert Louis Stevenson's divided-self myth a superhero-style makeover. Action-packed and a little bit shocking, this supercharged Jekyll & Hyde (****) has the makings of a major hit.

Read more...

Psychedelic Britannia, BBC Four

Barney Harsent

As part of BBC4’s continued course of musical regression therapy, we revisited a time of wide-eyed innocence, when ideas were big and pupils even bigger. The Sixties had swung and now they were set to start spinning as people looked to the past for inspiration, and to the future with aspiration.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
The Hack, ITV review - plodding anatomy of twin UK scandals

The latest instalment of the ITV drama department’s attempts at trial by television is another anatomy of a scandal, but with little of...

Punch, Apollo Theatre review - powerful play about the stren...

For the first part of Punch it feels as if you’re riding a roller coaster, watching the world speed and loop past as you see it from the...

Cinderella/La Cenerentola, English National Opera review - t...

When you go to the prince’s ball, would you prefer a night of sobriety or excess? Julia Burbach’s new production of Rossini’s Cinderella...

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...