tv
Imagine... Colm Tóibín: His Mother's Son, BBC OneWednesday, 03 December 2014
Watching this edition of Imagine… on Colm Tóibín, it was impossible not to be reminded of Graham Greene’s dictum about childhood being the bank balance of the writer. The key event in Tóibín’s childhood came at the age of eight, when his father’s serious illness saw Colm and his brother sent away to live with an aunt, and a sense of acute abandonment set in that saw him develop a stutter. Read more... |
Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty, Channel 5Thursday, 27 November 2014
Dan Jones has turned up to narrate the dramatised story of the Plantagenets in history lite mode, perhaps aimed at capturing a young audience. In Plantagenet country, as shown on TV, we witness a medieval version of soap opera family sagas where all hinges on an overbearing father, a conniving queen, murder, and general mayhem. Read more... |
The Legacy, Sky Arts 1Thursday, 27 November 2014
It’s a dark and Danish so of course there is a body. But it’s not that sort of body. The Legacy parts company from what we know of most Nordic television drama. It’s neither a fetid charnel house in which the cops are as freaky as the killers. Nor is it a place of sunshine, smiles and proportional representation. Read more... |
Posh People: Inside Tatler, BBC TwoTuesday, 25 November 2014
It won’t come as much of a surprise to find that the staff at Tatler are a bit on the posh side – who’d have thought? – but I honestly doubt they’re that much posher than, say, those at The Times, or The Guardian, or that other esteemed people’s champion, the New Statesman. As for the “posh to common” ratio on theartsdesk – without doing an exact head count, I’m not sure we radically break the mould, either. Read more... |
Confessions of a Copper, Channel 4Thursday, 20 November 2014
This will have brought a nostalgic tear to the eye of fans of The Sweeney (the TV show, not the Ray Winstone movie) or GF Newman's still-shocking 1978 series Law and Order. The producers had rounded up seven retired policepersons and got them to spill some of the beans about what policing was like in the Sixties and Seventies. Read more... |
Imagine... Anselm Kiefer, BBC OneTuesday, 18 November 2014
Anselm Kiefer reminds me a bit of someone I once worked for. Totally unpredictable, and possessed of a formidable intelligence and creativity, his mental leaps can be bewilderingly hard to follow, leading occasionally to truly breathtaking results, but crashing and burning just as often. Read more... |
24 Hours in Police Custody, Channel 4Tuesday, 18 November 2014
“Your law is too soft. Make it more strict.” An Albanian illegal immigrant suspected of handling stolen goods was unimpressed by the courtesy extended to him by Bedfordshire Police. Too many pleases and thank yous, he complained. In Tirana the rozzers probably don’t ask you if you have any food allergies. Read more... |
Rosemary's Baby, LifetimeTuesday, 18 November 2014
Polish director Agnieszka Holland is best known for two Holocaust films, both based on remarkable true stories: the 1990 Europa Europa and the 2011 release In Darkness. Here she tackles horror of the supernatural kind. Read more... |
Dancing Cheek to Cheek, BBC FourTuesday, 18 November 2014
I am picturing a scene in BBC4’s highly fortified underground headquarters, a conversation between its mastermind-in-chief and a hapless minion. “What do we do well, Stanley?” “History documentaries, boss.” “And what do people, according to the immutable proofs furnished by viewing figures, actually like?” “Ballroom dancing programmes, boss. Costume dramas. And unashamedly populist, good-looking young historians.” “Correct, Stanley. Read more... |
The Fall, BBC Two / Babylon, Channel 4Friday, 14 November 2014
The first series of this creepy Belfast-set crime thriller generated a mixture of critical enthusiasm and revulsion for its voyeuristic scenes of the sadistic murder of women. This season two opener [****] didn't give us any more of the latter, but successfully re-established the show's atmosphere of claustrophobic menace. It also probed further into the psychological battle between Gillian Anderson's DS Stella Gibson and Jamie Dornan's low-key but intensely deranged killer, Paul Spector. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Bavouzet, Nemecz, McLachlan, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nag...
“Mozart, made in Manchester”, the project to perform and record...
A Very Royal Scandal, Prime Video review - a fairly sound re...
Why do production companies think the world needs yet another reconstituted TV drama involving famous people in infamous situations? Newspapers...
The law's sick voyeurism - director Cédric Kahn on...
The trial of the left-wing intellectual Pierre Goldman, who was charged in April 1970 with four armed robberies, one of which led to the death of...
Album: Katy Perry - 143
Life can be unfair, and Katy Perry can’t be alone in finding herself having to take the rough with the smooth. Still, anyone would have thought...
Nightsleeper, BBC One review - strangers on a runaway train
“Let the train take the strain”, as the old advertising slogan urged us. The train in this...
Notes from Sheepland review - her farm is her canvas
Orla Barry laughed when she was advised to take up sheep farming, and not just because she had no experience. “Orla with the sheep eyes,” she...
The Substance review - Demi Moore as an ageing Hollywood cel...
If you like a body-horror movie to retain a semblance of logic in its plot line, then The Substance – grotesque, gory and finally...
Moby, O2 review - ebullient night of rave'n'rock...
Sometimes a gig suddenly and completely elevates. Such is the case tonight when Moby, on his first UK tour in 12 years, plays “Extreme Ways”, his...
Strange Darling review - love really hurts
“Are you a serial killer?” asks a woman sitting in a pick up truck with a man she just met at a bar. The neon sign from the motel...
The Goldman Case review - blistering French political drama
It’s a bold move to give a UK cinema release to this fierce courtroom drama about a French left-wing intellectual who was assassinated in1979....