tv
2011: Morrissey, Manics and the Resurrection ShuffleSaturday, 31 December 2011
I have always fought hard to resist nostalgia, but 2011 was the year when I succumbed. Maybe the present – and the future – was just too awful to contemplate, but I found myself constantly looking back. Whether it was onstage, onscreen or on a hand-held device the past seemed to provide the requisite cultural comfort food. Dessau Towers remains a dubstep-free zone. Read more... |
2011: Siren Songs, Top Tales, and Farewell to the MavericksFriday, 30 December 2011
We have, thankfully, long since moved beyond the point where there's any need to delineate or categorise works of art according to gender. However, looking back at 2011 it's hard to escape the conclusion that the most compelling music emerged from the mouths and minds of women. Read more... |
Felix and Murdo, Channel 4/ Ben Hur, Channel 5Thursday, 29 December 2011
I love the idea of Armstrong & Miller. Alexander Armstrong has his odious toff routine off to a tee, the clubbable rotter who'll cheat at golf, get you to pay for all the whisky sours in the clubhouse, and then shag your wife. Alongside, Ben Miller exists in a cloud of brainy abstraction, convinced that his serial bungling failures are merely the prelude to roaring success. Read more... |
Great Expectations, BBC One / True Stories: Sarah Palin - You Betcha!, More4Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Without wanting to sound humbuggy, do we really need another Great Expectations? Let alone two. There’s yet another movie coming next year but breasting the tape first is a new three-parter from the BBC. Cinema last visited the story of Pip Pirrip in 1998 when Alfonso Cuarón transplanted the novel to present-day New York. On television Tony Marchant had a go a year later. Read more... |
2011: Unlovely Love Stories and Unerotic Erotic TalesWednesday, 28 December 2011
While I'm still learning to disentangle my mezzo from my Meistersinger, I enjoyed a lot of the opera on offer in London this year, especially at English National Opera. Parsifal was perfect and Rameau's Castor and Pollux, while probably a little too Germanic in direction with its dancing amputated legs and unerotic nudity, was wonderfully sung. Read more... |
2011: Mysteries, Mayhem and MargaretWednesday, 28 December 2011
Many have dismissed 2011 as cinematically something of a disappointment, but while close inspection may have identified more cubic zirconia than bona fide diamonds, the year glittered nevertheless. The showstopping Mysteries of Lisbon was undoubtedly the real deal - what a teasing, sumptuous and gorgeously strange film that was (even with a running time in excess of four hours). |
The Borrowers, BBC OneTuesday, 27 December 2011
“For three weeks the Beans leave rich pickings for us Borrowers”. It’s probably not how most of us see the Christmas season, but if you’re a miniature person living under the floorboards, the seasonal treasures of the full-size humans – Beans – are irresistible. Setting this lovely one-off adaptation of Mary Norton’s books about the tiny recyclers over the advent count-down and bringing it up to date might have been obvious, but it charmed. Read more... |
2011: Farce, Fire and Fast CarsMonday, 26 December 2011
Every now and again there's a TV series that lives up to the hype, and in 2011 it was Channel 4's Top Boy. Although this crushing saga of gang violence, drug dealing and conflicted loyalties in Hackney was written by Irishman Ronan Bennett, it felt hauntingly authentic, though Bennett admitted that he'd almost despaired of getting the street-level patois right. |
2011: Glastonbury, Gaga and Charlie SheenMonday, 26 December 2011
2011 was a year when the wheels of global history cranked noticeably forward, the news always full of images that will be in school text books within a decade. It was also the year when, for most of us, “a bit peeved” became “utterly livid” that greedy, over-privileged vermin had gambled and lost all our money and were clearly getting away with it, unhindered. Read more... |
Downton Abbey Christmas Special, ITV1Sunday, 25 December 2011
Though the wind had wailed mournfully through the plot-holes of the second series of Downton Abbey, writer Julian Fellowes was in his element for this two-hour Yuletide spectacular. With the characters in place and a cluster of storylines tantalisingly in play, it boiled down to a grand game of tying knots, building climaxes and sawing off the loose ends. Read more... |
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