tv
The Beach Boys, Disney+ review - heroes and villains and good vibrationsFriday, 24 May 2024
It was – let’s see – 63 years ago today that Brian Wilson taught the band to play. Fabled for their resplendent harmonies and ecstatic hymning of the sun-kissed California dream, the Beach Boys seemed to represent everything golden and glorious about the mythic American West Coast. If you lived in Detroit or Deptford, it looked like a wonderland indeed. Read more... |
Rebus, BBC One review - revival of Ian Rankin's Scottish 'tec hits the jackpotMonday, 20 May 2024
The previous incarnation of Ian Rankin’s Scottish detective on ITV starred, in their contrasting styles, John Hannah and Ken Stott. For this Rebus redux, arriving nearly 25 years after the original first series began, screenwriter Gregory Burke has reworked the character as a younger Detective Sergeant, drawing on the spirit of Rankin’s original novels but with the author’s blessing to take the character somewhere new. Read more... |
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Disney+ review - how the boy from Sayreville, NJ conquered the worldTuesday, 07 May 2024
To mark the 40th anniversary of New Jersey’s second-greatest gift to rock’n’roll, Disney+ have served up this sprawling four-part documentary which tells you more about Jon Bon Jovi and his band of brothers than you ever needed to know. Or, possibly, wanted to. Read more... |
Red Eye, ITV review - Anglo-Chinese relations tested in junk-food thrillerMonday, 06 May 2024
Aircraft hijacking is a ghoulishly popular theme in films and TV, but Red Eye brings a slightly different twist to the perils of air travel. This time, North China Air’s Flight 357, from London to Beijing, hasn’t been hijacked, but it has become the scene of a string of inexplicable murders, carried out by unknown assassin(s) as it cruises at 40,000 feet. Read more... |
Blue Lights Series 2, BBC One review - still our best cop show despite a slacker structureTuesday, 23 April 2024
The first season of Blue Nights was so close to police procedural perfection, it would be hard for season two to reach the same heights. Overall, it doesn’t, though there are still special moments. Read more... |
Baby Reindeer, Netflix review - a misery memoir disturbingly presentedFriday, 19 April 2024
Richard Gadd won an Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2016 with material about being sexually abused by a man, in a set called Monkey See, Monkey Do that he performed on a treadmill with a gorilla at his back. Read more... |
Anthracite, Netflix review - murderous mysteries in the French AlpsTuesday, 16 April 2024
Ludicrous plotting and a tangled skein of coincidences hold no terrors for the makers of this frequently baffling French drama. Nonetheless, its story of a bizarre cult, a rapacious medical corporation and a trail of dead bodies stretching back through 30 years of history does somehow keep you coming back for more, if only to wonder how much more berserk proceedings can become. Read more... |
Ripley, Netflix review - Highsmith's horribly fascinating sociopath adrift in a sea of noirSaturday, 06 April 2024
There would have to be a good reason for making another screen version of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley, already successfully adapted by Anthony Minghella in his 1999 film. Read more... |
Scoop, Netflix review - revisiting a Right Royal nightmareFriday, 05 April 2024
What with the interminable Harry and Meghan saga, the death of the Queen and the recent health scares for Kate and King Chuck, this is just what the Royal Family needed – the exhumation of Prince Andrew’s catastrophic 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis which probed his alarm-bell-jangling relationship with serial sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Read more... |
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World Season 2, BBC Three review - fun, friendship and big talentsWednesday, 03 April 2024
In the finale of the latest RuPaul extravaganza to make it to the BBC, our hostess asks each of the competitors “why does the world need drag now more than ever?” The question needs detailed answers as increasingly more intense hate is hurled against the age-old art around the world, and it’s clear that the finals, at least when not all-American, are more a love-in than a competition. 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...
Wicked review - overly busy if beautifully sung cliffhanger
"No one mourns the wicked," we're told during the immediately arresting beginning to Wicked, which concludes two hours 40 minutes later...
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From a privileged position in the Festival Hall stalls, I could see 97-year old Herbert Blomstedt’s near-immobile back as he sat on a piano stool...
Hannah Scott, Worthing Pavilion Theatre Atrium review - fill...
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A Christmas Carol, Old Vic review - tidings of discomfort an...
This Dickens classic is an annual treat, or a Christmas trial – depending on your point of view. At the...
Mediha review - a brutalised Yazidi teen comes of age with a...
The plight of persecuted minority groups around the world seems to be growing worse. As one form of response, a non-fiction film like Mediha...