tv
The Great War: The People's Story, ITVMonday, 18 August 2014
The best thing about The Great War: The People’s Story is the variety of intonations and accents that reveal the characters of the individuals whose letters, memoirs and diaries are collected in the programme. Last week’s opening episode caught all the gung-ho excitement that followed the declaration of war as men streamed along to join up. This second one brought us something darker, as we moved forward to 1915, with the “machine of death” already reaping its toll. Read more...
|
The Beauty of Anatomy, BBC FourWednesday, 13 August 2014
If the idealised human body forms the heart of the classical tradition in Western art, the close study of nature is its lifeblood. It is inevitable then that artists have sought better to understand anatomy, and there are many examples of artists whose knowledge of the human body was more than skin deep. Read more... |
Kate Adie's Women of World War One, BBC TwoMonday, 11 August 2014
The role of women during the First World War has been heavily mythologised in a way that has cast them as both the angels of the home front and a force for positive political change. What made this documentary, written and presented by revered war correspondent Kate Adie, so fascinating was that as well as providing a comprehensive guide to the many roles played by women during the conflict, it blew some of those myths wide open. Read more... |
The Village, Series 2, BBC OneMonday, 11 August 2014
The Village got its commemoration in early. While the First World War has been on every broadcaster’s to-do list 100 years on, Peter Moffat’s portrait of rural life covered 1914-18 in 2013. The first series was not, it may be safely contended, a lot of fun. So all-encompassing was the miserablism that after six hours you weren’t sure whether to swallow a bottle of anti-depressants or throw a brick at a mansion. Read more... |
The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire, BBC TwoThursday, 07 August 2014
We call it the First World War, but in Western Europe at least, most of the scrutiny is confined to what happened to Britain, France and Germany (with a side order of Russia) from 1914-18. Read more... |
In the Club, BBC OneWednesday, 06 August 2014
No one knows better than Kay Mellor that people from all walks are brought together by common experience. Being on the game in Band of Gold. Wanting to lose weight in Fat Friends. And no experience is more common than pregnancy. Hence In the Club, a new series focused on an ante-natal class. Read more... |
Melvyn Bragg's Radical Lives, BBC TwoSunday, 03 August 2014
We’ve had only two poll tax riots in England. And since England has only twice legislated for a tax on the person, this proves rather a decisive verdict on its popularity. The last lot was in 1991, and though many protesters may have wished for the head of Margaret Thatcher, no one was beheaded. Read more... |
Great War Diaries, BBC TwoSunday, 03 August 2014
As we approach the anniversary of the beginning of World War I, the television schedules devoted to it are becoming denser and denser. In volume, at least, rather more than insight. We wonder just what more can be broadcast, after all, about the history concerned that has not already been said at some point in the century that has followed the conflict's tragic onset? Read more... |
Art of China, BBC FourThursday, 31 July 2014
If, like me, you switched this on feeling sheepish about your sketchy knowledge of Chinese art, you would have welcomed as a ready-made excuse the news that some monuments synonymous with Chinese culture are relatively recent discoveries. Read more... |
A Hundred Million Musicians: China's Classical Challenge, BBC FourMonday, 28 July 2014
A few years ago I sat high up in a rapt, sweltering Albert Hall as a lone pianist performed for two hours in the round. Neither before nor since has the BBC Proms treated a classical musician like a rock god. But then Lang Lang, whether his music-making causes you to cheer or shudder, was and remains the poster boy of a cultural revolution. A few weeks earlier he'd opened the Olympic Games in Beijing. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
The Turkish Detective, BBC Two review - a bad business in th...
Any show making its debut in the midst of Wimbledon and the Euro-football, plus a spectacular performance by Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone, is...
The Night Caller, Channel 5 review - all he hears is radio g...
Showing over four consecutive nights, Night Caller is a stripped-down psychological...
Album: Joe Goddard - Harmonics
Joe Goddard’s torrent of creativity rarely fails to amaze. As well as eight albums as a crucial part of Hot Chip, he has made two in the 2 Bears...
Music Reissues Weekly: Angelic Upstarts - Teenage Warning
NME’s Paul Morley reviewed Angelic Upstarts’ debut album, the newly reissued Teenage Warning, in August 1979....
Paul Alexander: Bitter Crop - The Heartache and Triumph of B...
It’s often said that nobody mythologised Billie Holiday like Billie Holiday. I’m not so sure.
In this fine, clear-eyed...
First Person: Katharina Kastening on directing slimline Bize...
Peter Brook's reimagining of Bizet's Carmen condenses the scale of the original into a more intimate theatrical experience. The score has...
Album: Kiiōtō - As Dust we Rise
As Dust we Rise ends with “Quilt,” a percussion-driven lamentation bringing to mind the New Orleans stylings of Dr. John. The album...
Heart of an Oak review - an adventure film starring a tree a...
On one level, Heart of an Oak is the most spectacular nature film you are ever likely to see. The camera glides over a forest before...
Next to Normal, Wyndham's Theatre review - rock musical...
We open on one of those suburban American families we know so well from Eighties and Nineties sitcoms - they’re not quite Homer,...
The Nature of Love review - disappointing French-Canadian ro...
The Nature of Love joins a recent spate of films where older...