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Drive to Survive, Season 3, Netflix review - the agony and the ecstasy of the 2020 F1 campaignSaturday, 20 March 2021
The 2020 Formula One season was all set to start in Australia last March when it was derailed by the Covid emergency. The F1 organisers insisted that they’d get the racing back on track somehow, and what sounded like foolhardy bravado was justified when they successfully staged a 17-race championship between July and December. Read more... |
The One, Netflix review - the downside of scientific matchmakingThursday, 18 March 2021
Readers of John Marrs’s 2017 novel The One should probably look away now, since Netflix’s dramatisation of the story bears scant resemblance to the book. Read more... |
Grace, ITV review - sun, sea and skulduggery in sunny BrightonMonday, 15 March 2021
We last saw John Simm on ITV in 2018’s Hong Kong-based murder mystery Strangers, a product from the Jack and Harry Williams script factory which wasted its exotic backdrops with a plot which mooched about in a dispirited fashion before dozing off entirely. Read more... |
Unforgotten, Series 4, ITV review - is the familiar formula wearing thin?Wednesday, 10 March 2021
There comes a time when every successful formula can do with an overhaul, and that particular bell may be tolling for Unforgotten (ITV). Read more... |
Deutschland 89, Channel 4 review - the Wall comes down, what next?Saturday, 06 March 2021
Joerg and Anna Winger’s gripping drama of East Germany, a loose portrait set over the final decade of that country’s existence, has reached its culmination, and this first episode of Deutschland 89 landed us right in the unpredictable maelstrom of history. Read more... |
The Terror, BBC Two review - nightmare in the Arctic wastesThursday, 04 March 2021
Admittedly, Antarctic explorer Captain Scott was at the other end of the earth from the protagonists of The Terror (BBC Two), but they would surely have concurred with his anguished observation: “Great God! This is an awful place.” Based on Dan Simmons’s novel, The Terror is a fictionalised account of the 1845 attempt by Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific via the Arctic Ocean. Read more... |
Your Honor, Sky Atlantic review - Bryan Cranston suffers fear and loathing in New OrleansWednesday, 03 March 2021
Nice to find Bryan Cranston taking the lead in a TV series again (this is his first since Breaking Bad ended in 2013), and the role of New Orleans judge Michael Desiato fits him like a well-tailored suit. Read more... |
Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, Apple TV+ review - sprawling account of the singer's rise to superstardomSunday, 28 February 2021
The Billie Eilish story is a paradigm of pop music and marketing, 2020s-style. Eilish’s instinctive talent became evident when she was barely into her teens, and she flourished with the support of a close-knit and musical family. Read more... |
Stand Up and Deliver, Channel 4 review - how to make a comicFriday, 26 February 2021
Everyone (well, almost everyone) can tell a joke. But being a comic – holding an audience rapt, getting a roomful of strangers to like you and laugh at your material – takes real talent. Read more... |
Bloodlands, BBC One review - ghosts of the Troubles return to poison the presentMonday, 22 February 2021
Belfast-based thriller Bloodlands comes from the pen of first-time TV writer Chris Brandon, though he may find some of his thunder being stolen by the show’s producer, Line of Duty supremo Jed Mercurio. Line of Duty is filmed in Belfast too, though it doesn’t advertise the fact on screen. 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 Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review - a mi...
Lauded by Auden, detested by Edmund Wilson, the Tolkien sagas have divided many from childhood onwards: for kids, they’re not quite pulpy enough...
Jesus & Mary Chain, O2 Institute, Birmingham – Reid Brot...
The Jesus and Mary Chain may have been around for some 40 years (albeit on and off), but the Reid brothers clearly have no intention of setting up...
Album: Ajukaja & Mart Avi - Death of Music
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The Producers, Menier Chocolate Factory review - liberating...
There is something deliciously perfect about the timing of The Producers’ arrival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In these...
La rondine, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sumptuous orches...
There are no battlement leaps or murderous vows, no pistols or daggers, not so much as a slight cough disturbs the serene plot of La rondine...
A Midsummer Night's Dream, RSC, Barbican review - visua...
Hermia is a headbutting punk with a tartan fetish, Oberon looks like Adam Ant and Lysander appears to have stumbled out of a Madness video. Yet...
L’étoile, RNCM, Manchester review - lavish and cheerful absu...
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Black Doves, Netflix review - Keira Knightley and Ben Whisha...
It’s rare to spot Keira Knightley in a TV series, and it’s no doubt a sign of changing times that she’s starring in this six-part spies-and-guns...