tv
Vexed, Series 2, BBC TwoThursday, 02 August 2012
It’s not usually a good sign when the second series takes two years to materialise. Vexed , a comedy drama with corpses, took its first bow a couple of years ago. It offered Toby Stephens as DI Jack Armstrong, a detective from the old school who’s rather more mouth than trousers. There can’t have been much confidence in it back then: August is the cruellest month for fresh television content when the target audience is generally off on its hols. Read more...
|
Sex Story: Fifty Shades of Grey, Channel 4Sunday, 29 July 2012
Having begun as a piece of fan fiction derived from the Twilight movie series, EL James's Fifty Shades of Grey has blown up into the publishing phenomenon du jour. It's supposedly the UK's fastest-selling book of all time, and has sold nearly 50 million copies worldwide. Read more... |
Barenboim on Beethoven: Nine Symphonies That Changed the World, BBC TwoSunday, 29 July 2012
If he isn't careful, Daniel Barenboim is going to find himself on a plinth in Trafalgar Square. He was feted at the Olympic opening ceremony as a great humanitarian, and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is being held up as a model for how music can bridge political and ethnic divides, with particular reference to the Middle East. Read more... |
The Opening Ceremony, BBC OneSaturday, 28 July 2012
Oh to have been a fly on the wall at the Palace. “Your Majesty, we’ve had a request from a Mr Boyle. It concerns the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.” “I’m already opening the blessed thing, aren’t I? What else do they want?” “Ma’am, they just want you to be yourself.” Read more... |
The Churchills, Channel 4Friday, 27 July 2012
So, how are we all feeling about David Starkey? The historian’s reputation has taken a battering lately, since he was seen last year taunting overweight schoolchildren on Jamie’s Dream School and more recently causing Twitter to combust after criticising black culture on Newsnight. But if Channel 4 is to be believed, such displays of bullying and bigotry haven’t dented his authority as a historian. Read more... |
Bert and Dickie, BBC OneThursday, 26 July 2012
Nearly there. In one more day the phoney Games will be over and the real drama can begin. For the past weeks the television schedules have jostled with documentaries about past Olympians and current ones, while Chariots of Fire has been going for gold in both the theatre and the multiplex. There was just time last night for one final Olympic story to be smuggled under the wire. Read more... |
The History of Art in Three Colours, BBC FourThursday, 26 July 2012
It’s a patchy history, the history of art told through the colour gold, though I suppose it would be. After all, despite the title of this new three-part series, we’re not actually talking about gold as colour, that seductively warm, buttery yellow of Italianate landscapes and Turner sunsets, but of gold itself. Actual gold. The Impressionists never used it, but those ancient Egyptian tomb builders did, and so did medieval icon painters. Read more... |
Twenty Twelve: The Finale, BBC TwoWednesday, 25 July 2012
So that’s all over then. Which isn’t good. The gnawing anxiety for followers of Twenty Twelve, the programme whose theme song is “There may be trouble ahead...", has been whether real-life events would become so like it - or even worse, more like it than it could be - that the programme would become redundant. Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series Finale, BBC TwoWednesday, 25 July 2012
At the end of episode four, we left ferret-faced copper Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) seemingly having his fingers hacked off with a bolt-cutter by a gang of hooded thugs and their poisonous little child-sidekick, Ryan. Boringly, the glum and dislikeable Arnott was rescued in this finale when the supposedly corrupt DCI Gates organised a police rescue, and got away with all his fingers mostly intact. Read more... |
Tom Daley: Diving for Britain /Absolutely Fabulous, BBC OneTuesday, 24 July 2012
Jane Treays's previous film about diver Tom Daley was 2010's The Diver and His Dad, which followed the amphibious teenager as he sat his GCSEs and defended various titles. Ominously, it also charted the progress of his father Rob's struggle against a brain tumour. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
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....
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...
Zoë Coombs Marr, Soho Theatre review - stock checks and spre...
You have to admire the ambition of a show called Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life, the latest from Zoe Coombs Marr, which she...
The Truth About Harry Beck, London Transport Museum Cubic Th...
Iconic is a word the meaning of which is moving from the religious world into popular culture – win a reality TV...
theartsdesk Q&A: young pianist Ignas Maknickas on appear...
The high level of entries for this year’s Leeds Piano Competition – 366, almost twice the...
Album: Miranda Lambert - Postcards From Texas
Miranda Lambert is one of those country stars who’s...
The Lightest Element, Hampstead Theatre review - engrossing,...
British theatre has a proud heritage of science plays. From 1990s classics such as Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993) and Michael Frayn’s ...