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On Expenses, BBC Four

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 23 February 2010

As one of the opening captions put it, "you couldn't make it up", and this sprightly drama about the House of Commons expenses scandal duly tacked its way skilfully up the channel between satire and slapstick. Concluding correctly that wallowing in moral outrage was not the way to handle a subject whose full ramifications have yet to land on us (and them) with their full crushing force, writer Tony Saint instead deftly depicted the Commons as a kind of Swiftian monstrosity, ludicrous yet...

Comment

The Bible: A History, Channel 4

Jasper Rees Monday, 22 February 2010

For six years from 1988, when Sinn Fein was banned from direct broadcasting, Gerry Adams could be seen on television, but not heard. Instead, actors would read his words while his lips soundlessly moved. What would the architects of that ban have said if they’d been told that one day the political face of the Provisional IRA would be given an hour on television to make a programme about Christ? "Jesus wept?" "He’s got a bloody cheek?"

Comment

EastEnders live, BBC One

Veronica Lee Saturday, 20 February 2010

It was Stacey whodunnit. EastEnders’ first live broadcast last night, to celebrate 25 years on BBC One, ended with Stacey Branning (Lacey Turner) declaring, “It was me. I did it. I killed Archie. It was me.” So now we know, as one of the most drawn-out storylines in the history of soaps finally reached its conclusion (Archie Mitchell was killed at Christmas).

Comment

The Great Offices of State, BBC Two

Gerard Gilbert Thursday, 18 February 2010

The Great Offices of State: Michael Cockerell visits the Foreign Office

That title has been troubling me. The Great Offices of State is so stolid and dull, like an illustrated Ladybird children’s book from the 1950s - The Flags of the Commonwealth, or some such. And then you start trying to think of alternatives, a play on Yes, Minister perhaps, and you soon see that this flippancy wouldn't do justice to what is in fact a masterful achievement - the sort of television series that will (or should) be shown in schools and universities for...

Skippy: Australia's First Superstar, BBC Four

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Though children’s TV series Skippy The Bush Kangaroo was only in production from 1966 to 1968, it continues to resonate deafeningly with Australians, who are still apt to break into the theme tune or start doing kangaroo-hops round their living rooms. In fact it isn’t just Australians, since its 91 episodes were shown in 128 countries and dubbed into numerous exotic languages.

Comment

Storyville: The Most Dangerous Man in America, BBC Four

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 16 February 2010

On Daniel Ellsberg's first day in his new job at the Pentagon in 1964, working under Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred.

Off Kilter, BBC Two

graeme Thomson Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Fife, like Scotland itself, is a mass of contradictions compressed into a relatively small space: beautiful beaches lie in the shadow of lowering tower blocks; the pink, plump prosperity of St Andrews rubs against the scar tissue of former mining towns like Methil; tourism nestles uncomfortably close to despair.

Comment

Generation Jihad, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 09 February 2010

For a number of years I used to live opposite Abu Hamza. You didn’t see him much. I remember a Mercedes spilling devoutly robed football fans who had come to watch the game round his place when Iran played the USA in the 1998 World Cup. After 9/11, the street would occasionally fill with swooping fleets of police vehicles. Once they decanted a squad of space-suited forensics looking, presumably, for incendiary devices.

Comment

Empire of the Seas, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Friday, 05 February 2010

Dan Snow’s four-part history of the Royal Navy has been in many ways a marvellous thing, and a timely reminder of one of the central planks of our island story. At a moment when various brass hats are openly discussing the possibility of one of the UK’s armed services being dispensed with (and it won’t be the Army), Snow’s efforts may yet take on a greater significance than he imagined.

Tower Block of Commons, Channel 4

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 02 February 2010

What do our elected representatives in Westminster know? Apart from, clearly, how to fill in an expenses claim form. You can file all the usual complaints about Tower Block of Commons, a series in which MPs take up residence in sink estates. It uses the tired old Wife Swap format of sadistically throwing its subjects in at the deep end to watch them sink or swim. The editing is visibly manipulative.