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Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race / The Spaceman of Afghanistan, BBC FourTuesday, 14 October 2014
Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race (*****) arrived at a strange time. With its remarkable accumulation of Soviet archive material and interviews with key figures, including Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space, the programme must have been a long time in the making and the fruit of lengthy collaboration of a kind that might not be so readily forthcoming today. Read more... |
Homeland, Series 4, Channel 4 / The Code, BBC FourMonday, 13 October 2014
It was tempting to assume that Homeland [****] had died along with Damian Lewis's Brody, last seen dangling gruesomely from a crane in Tehran at the end of series three, but this tense and uncomfortable season-opener suggested that all may not be lost. Read more... |
The Great British Bake Off 2014 Final, BBC OneThursday, 09 October 2014
It feels as though 2014 was the year in which the Twitter generation finally woke up and realised what it had done. For five years a quiet, unassuming baking competition had risen through the ranks to become the most polite BBC One ratings juggernaut in the corporation’s history. Frankly, the world was ready for a bearded ginger Irishman to throw his baked Alaska in the bin and storm off into the great British countryside. Read more... |
Human Universe, BBC TwoTuesday, 07 October 2014
Brian Cox has a very beguiling way of expressing quiet wonder. He’s taken on the very largest of subjects in Human Universe, extending traditions of science and natural history broadcasting towards a wider study of how the human race has come to be what it is, where it came from and where it may be going, and he doesn’t raise his voice on a single occasion. Other BBC presenters carried away by their subject matter could certainly take a hint. Read more... |
Bad Education, BBC ThreeTuesday, 07 October 2014
Two moments of physical comedy from British sitcoms regularly fill the polls of viewers’ favourites: Basil Fawlty thrashing his broken-down car with a branch, and Del Boy falling sideways through a just-opened pub bar. Read more... |
Cat Watch 2014: The New Horizon Experiment, BBC TwoTuesday, 07 October 2014
Cats have had a harder time adapting to humans than humans to cats, as this remarkable examination of contemporary feline habits points out. It is not always easy changing from wild animal to feline friend, as the programme put it. Nocturnal hunters now have a life in the daytime, but they are still solo rather than pack animals. Read more... |
Genesis: Together and Apart, BBC TwoSunday, 05 October 2014
Despite a 47-year history which has taken them from pomp to pop and established them as a top-selling global institution, there's still a lingering sense that Genesis don't think they've been taken seriously enough. This was detectable in Phil Collins's comment included here that "we're just popular and there's nothing wrong with that... I won't take the credit and I won't take the blame." Read more... |
Peaky Blinders, Series 2, BBC TwoFriday, 03 October 2014
So we're off for another blast of between-the-wars ultraviolence with the Shelby gang from Birmingham, once again soundtracked by incongruous electric blues music. Time has moved on from the immediate aftermath of Great War hostilities and now we're into the Twenties, which are roaring as if they're in agony. Read more... |
Blenheim Palace: Great War House, ITVFriday, 03 October 2014
Julian Fellowes, now the Conservative peer Lord Fellowes, left behind the fictional world of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey to give us this sumptuous tour of Blenheim Palace. Nor were its surroundings neglected as vista after vista showed us Blenheim’s lavishly landscaped gardens, fountains and columned monument to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, victorious over Louis XIV. Read more... |
The Paedophile Hunter, Channel 4Thursday, 02 October 2014
In a house in Nuneaton, a man calling himself Stinson Hunter lures paedophiles towards exposure, shame and possible prosecution. “We set the profile that is like the rope,” he explained. “And then if they choose to put that rope round their neck and hang theirselves [sic], that is their choice. We have not pushed them.” Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
The Great Gatsby, London Coliseum review - lavish and lively...
In 2012, an eight-hour long version of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby...
Philharmonia, Alsop, RFH / Levit, Abramović, QEH review - mi...
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The Accountant 2 review - belated return of Ben Affleck...
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The Inseparables, Finborough Theatre review - uneven portrai...
The Finborough has once again performed the miracle of creating a whole world in its intimate space: this time, inter-war France, where...
The Ugly Stepsister review - gleeful Grimm revamp
Although both of the Brothers Grimm died around 1860, they still insist on getting dozens of film and TV credits in each decade of our...
Album: Self Esteem - A Complicated Woman
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Flintoff, Disney+ review - tumultuous life and times of the...
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Personal Values, Hampstead Theatre review - deep grief that...
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Album: Jenny Hval - Iris Silver Mist
Had I read the contextual blurb about Jenny Hval's latest album first, I might have assumed it was a perfume company collaboration. The album is...