tv
Whirlybird: Live Above LA - Storyville, BBC Four review - rise and fall of the first couple of airborne TV newsTuesday, 16 February 2021
A story of obsession, media madness and the price of fame, as well as a filmic incarnation of Jim Morrison’s “bloody red sun of fantastic LA”, Matt Yoka’s film Whirlybird is a strange and fascinating hybrid. Read more... |
ZeroZeroZero, Sky Atlantic review - how drug money makes the world go roundFriday, 05 February 2021
Based on a book by Roberto Saviano, author of the Neapolitan gang saga Gomorrah, ZeroZeroZero (Sky Atlantic) is an account of the international drugs trade and the way its tentacles wrap themselves around the... Read more... |
The Drowning, Channel 5 review - unbelievableWednesday, 03 February 2021
The theme of a parent haunted by the loss of a child can have powerful dramatic potential, and this is the premise behind The Drowning, Channel 5’s new four-night mystery. Nine years earlier, Jodie and Frank’s four-year-old son Tom vanished during a family outing to a local lake. Read more... |
Spiral, Series 8 Finale, BBC Four review - justice is done in stormy climactic episodesSunday, 31 January 2021
If this had to be the end of Spiral, the final episodes of Series 8 (BBC Four) at least ensured that justice was done. Read more... |
Marcella, Series 3, ITV review - Anna Friel returns as the defective detectiveWednesday, 27 January 2021
Anna Friel’s unstable detective Marcella Backland has been on the brink of existential burn-out ever since her first appearance on ITV in 2016, but it seems audiences have a perverse desire to see what psychological black holes she might plummet down next. Read more... |
It's a Sin, Channel 4 review - poignant, funny, vibrant masterpieceSunday, 24 January 2021
Finally, it seems, the time is right for a major British TV drama about how the AIDS crisis hit the early 1980s London gay scene. Read more... |
Call My Agent!, Series 4, Netflix review - the final bow for the Parisian showbiz saga?Friday, 22 January 2021
Sad to report, this fourth series of Call My Agent! (Netflix) will be the final outing for this caustically addictive saga of actors and their agents. The show’s unique trademark has been its success in attracting an impressive roster of A-list French actors and getting them to behave in outlandish and ridiculous ways, but maybe they’re just running out of suitably recognisable names. Read more... |
Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain, BBC Two review - documentary fails to deliverWednesday, 20 January 2021
What a television programme gets called is not always the choice of the people making it, but it certainly is the choice of its broadcaster. In the case of Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain, the relevant people at the BBC may come to regret giving an otherwise decent documentary that title. Read more... |
Servant, Apple TV+ review - shocks, shivers and black humour in missing-baby sagaTuesday, 19 January 2021
The oeuvre of M Night Shyamalan has tended to veer between unsettling creepiness and sometimes hilarious misfires, but, working as Executive Producer with screenwriter Tony Basgallop, he’s hit the spot with this unnerving series for Apple TV +. Read more... |
Finding Alice, ITV review - thriller, comedy or melodrama?Monday, 18 January 2021
Or, What The Durrells Did Next. 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
Death of Music was created in Estonia. Despite the English lyrics, directness is absent. Take the title track. “Drop the music” exhorts...
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...
Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile is not exactly a French farce, but it comes from a post-Offenbach era (1877 saw its premiere) when cheerful...
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...