tv
Red Arrows: Inside the Bubble, BBC TwoMonday, 28 July 2014![]()
The RAF's renowned aerobatics team found itself at the centre of a political mini-storm last week when it was asked to use only blue and white smoke trails (but not red) at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Glasgow. The MoD briskly quashed the request, prompting dark rumours about an anti-separationist conspiracy in Whitehall. However, I can't imagine the pilots themselves even noticed, so ferociously do they have to concentrate on their day jobs. Read more... |
The Secret History of Our Streets, BBC TwoSaturday, 26 July 2014![]()
Joseph Bullman's first series – about six London streets – won several awards, and deservedly so. Now he has turned his attention to Scotland in a three-parter starting in Edinburgh's Moray Place, and last night's opener was another beautifully judged mix of architectural history and social comment. Read more... |
Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, BBC OneThursday, 24 July 2014![]()
What is an opening ceremony for? For the taste gendarmerie on Twitter, it’s a juicy chance to fall on the festivities like a pack of wolves and tear the thing to shreds. For homegrown celebrities now domiciled far from the host country, it’s a chance to reaffirm vows of patriotism in public. For everyone else, it’s a party attended by some ridiculously beautiful athletes, plus the codgers of the bowls team. Read more... |
The Mill, Series 2, Channel 4 / The Lancaster: Britain's Flying Past, BBC TwoMonday, 21 July 2014![]()
Supposedly, The Mill [*] was Channel 4's highest-rating drama of 2013, and the viewers' reward is this second series. However, the secret of the success of this dour, dimly lit series is hard to fathom. Its attempt to convert the history of working-class protest during the Industrial Revolution into a plausible interplay of character is as teeth-gnashingly literal-minded as it was first time round. Read more... |
The Joy of the Guitar Riff, BBC FourFriday, 18 July 2014![]()
We all love a good guitar riff and so a whole hour devoted to this one simple pleasure sounds like a surefire hit. BBC Four is the go-to channel for the rock‘n’roll documentary and this latest offering boasted a dazzling line-up including Brian May, Tony Iommi and Johnny Marr. Read more... |
Glasgow Girls, BBC ThreeWednesday, 16 July 2014![]()
A few months ago, Glasgow Girls - Cora Bissett and David Greig’s 2013 musical based on the true story of seven teenage girls from Drumchapel, Glasgow and their campaign to end the forced removal of school-age asylum seekers - returned to the city’s Citizens Theatre for another sell-out run. Read more... |
Coast, Series 9, BBC TwoWednesday, 16 July 2014![]()
If you like middle-market tabloids, you’ll be into Coast. Like a reliable tide, the show about the sea has been washing up on BBC Two’s shores since 2005. A factual series defined by the ocean main which surrounds the British Isles, it comes with a stock of stories that, unlike the mackerel population, seem in no danger of running out. Read more... |
Utopia, Series 2, Channel 4Tuesday, 15 July 2014![]()
When the first, and shattering, series of Utopia ended 18 months ago there were alarming suggestions that its ratings weren't good enough to justify a second, even though there was plenty of potential for one. On the other hand if there were to be a series two, could it ever be good enough? Read more... |
Britain's Most Dangerous Songs: Listen to the Banned, BBC FourSaturday, 12 July 2014![]()
The most notorious case of the BBC banning a pop record was the episode of the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" in 1977, which was of course the year of Her Maj's Silver Jubilee. "That was genuinely dangerous," Paul Morley intoned gravely (the record that is, rather than its banning), though as with several of the cases examined here, this one wasn't quite as open and shut as it seemed. Read more... |
The Lance Armstrong Story - Stop at Nothing, BBC Four / The Nation's Favourite Motown Song, ITVMonday, 07 July 2014![]()
The fall of super-cyclist Lance Armstrong is a subject fit for Euripides or Shakespeare. It has also worked pretty well for director Alex Holmes, who managed to round up virtually all the key players caught in Armstrong's vortex of deceit for this unflaggingly gripping documentary [****]. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
![Murder most confusing: Ayse (Yasemin Kay Allen), Mehmet (Ethan Kai) and Inspector Ikmen (Haluk Bilginer)](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Turkish%20MAIN.jpg?itok=dRq8IqHf)
Any show making its debut in the midst of Wimbledon and the Euro-football, plus a spectacular performance by Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone, is...
![A haunted man: Robert Glenister as Tony Conroy](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Glenister%20MAIN%20copy.jpg?itok=6fZjDdHU)
Showing over four consecutive nights, Night Caller is a stripped-down psychological...
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/joegoddard_Harmonics_3000_new_v2.jpg?itok=tdrzhBOH)
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...
![Angelic Upstarts at the time of 'Teenage Warning's' release. Second left: Mensi](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Angelic%20Upstarts_header_1000.jpg?itok=1v-5aO4q)
NME’s Paul Morley reviewed Angelic Upstarts’ debut album, the newly reissued Teenage Warning, in August 1979....
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Billie_Holiday.jpg?itok=bCSxbCxB)
It’s often said that nobody mythologised Billie Holiday like Billie Holiday. I’m not so sure.
In this fine, clear-eyed...
![Katharina Kastening: 'the underlying message regarding the danger in female stereotyping is one that unfortunately persists in our societies'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Carmen%201.jpeg?itok=Dat42NmJ)
Peter Brook's reimagining of Bizet's Carmen condenses the scale of the original into a more intimate theatrical experience. The score has...
![Kiiōtō's 'As Dust we Rise': Marianne Faithfull seems to be an unacknowledged presence](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Kii%C5%8Dt%C5%8D%20-%20As%20Dust%20We%20Rise.jpg?itok=LHVgNU9o)
As Dust we Rise ends with “Quilt,” a percussion-driven lamentation bringing to mind the New Orleans stylings of Dr. John. The album...
![A barn owl tracks a field mouse](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Oak%20owl.jpg?itok=SSl9kPEF)
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...
![Jack Wolfe and Cassie Levy in Next to Normal - at least one of them is keeping it real](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Next%20To%20Normal%20Jack%20Wolfe%20and%20Caissie%20Levy.jpg?itok=2AJfSPF3)
We open on one of those suburban American families we know so well from Eighties and Nineties sitcoms - they’re not quite Homer,...
![Embraceable you: Magalie Lépine-Blondeau as Sophia with her lover Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal)](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/dancing%20shot%20Nature%20of%20Love.jpeg?itok=E_cZDpf9)
The Nature of Love joins a recent spate of films where older...