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Fostering & Me with Lorraine Pascale, BBC Two

Andy Plaice Thursday, 19 June 2014

My heart sank when Lorraine Pascale’s documentary on fostering began with her making cakes with Junior, a 10-year-old boy in care. I feared Bake Off meets Who Do You Think You Are?, but those worries quickly faded as Pascale told her extraordinary story.

Tigers about the House, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 17 June 2014

There is a saying that dogs have owners but cats have staff, and it's an axiom forcibly borne out by this new three-part series. The felines in question are Sumatran tiger cubs rather than primped and pampered household pets, but they're so rare, and so prone to the tigerish equivalent of infant mortality, that Australia Zoo's tiger expert Giles Clark decided to rear them at his family home.

Comment

World Cup Finals 2014, BBC One

Matthew Wright Sunday, 15 June 2014

Gary Lineker has been honing his marketing schtick for several decades now, selling us a spud-based product that promises to make us feel great, only to fill us with self-loathing as soon as it’s finished. Yes, the England football team, seemingly made of potato, slickly packaged, but ultimately unsatisfying and undoubtedly bad for your health. (The crisps, I hear, are much healthier than they used to be.)

Going to the Dogs, Channel 4

Tom Birchenough Thursday, 12 June 2014

Two years ago Penny Woolcock was at the heart of Birmingham street gangs in her documentary One Mile Way; that one was titled after the fact that two of the city’s competing outfits were separated only by the distance of the film’s title. In Going to the Dogs, she's back in the same 'hood, this time investigating the city’s dog-fighting scene, with the help of one of the earlier film’s lead protagonists, Dylan Duffus, who proved here a very able narrator-presenter.

Comment

Britain's Whale Hunters: The Untold Story, BBC Four

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Before the Vikings came to Britain there was no whaling, though coastal-dwellers would avail themselves of any beached strays by chopping them up for their meat and oil. It was the bellicose Norsemen who imported the notion of actively pursuing the creatures, which is how the pilot whale hunt became a tradition in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. A line of boats would drive the whales into the shallows, where they were slaughtered by the islanders.

David Beckham into the Unknown, BBC One

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 10 June 2014

As an appetiser to the tournament about to swamp your television, the BBC paired up one global football brand with another: Becks, meet Brazil; Brazil, meet Becks. Appropriately the encounter lasted 90 minutes, and featured long stretches in which the two tentative participants probed and prodded at each other, interleaved by occasional brief flare-ups of drama.

John Ogdon: Living with Genius / You've Got a Friend: The Carole King Story, BBC Four

Adam Sweeting Saturday, 07 June 2014

It's something of a cliche to regard concert pianists as mad geniuses or nutty professors, and John Ogdon fitted the formula only too well. Born in Nottinghamshire in 1937, he displayed absurdly precocious musical brilliance as a child, and in due course became one of the highest-flying students at the Royal Northern College of Music.

The South Bank Show: Abi Morgan, Sky Arts 1

Tom Birchenough Thursday, 05 June 2014

It’s been a decade since the television drama Sex Traffic brought writer Abi Morgan into the mainstream. It won an impressive collection of awards, and its tale of international prostitution networks, and their brutality, was as harsh and under-the-skin as they come.

I Wanna Marry 'Harry', ITV2

Adam Sweeting Thursday, 05 June 2014

Great idea. Round up a dozen 20-something American girls whose idea of a royal family is the Kardashians, whisk them off to a stately pile somewhere in the south of England, and put them in a beauty contest to see which one can take the fancy of a bloke who might just be Prince Harry.

Amber, BBC Four/ CSI: Vegas, C5

Veronica Lee Wednesday, 04 June 2014

When Amber (****) was shown earlier this year in Ireland, the crime series created by Rob Cawley and Paul Duane for state broadcaster RTE caused a kerfuffle as (giving nothing away) it didn't follow the usual narrative of teenager-goes-missing-police-miss-clues-and-family-implodes drama.