tv
Laurel Canyon, Sky Documentaries review - musical bliss in lotus landSunday, 26 July 2020
It was Alison Ellwood who directed 2013’s History of the Eagles, and now she’s at the helm of this new two-parter on Sky Documentaries, telling the story of the Los Angeles music scene from the mid-Sixties... Read more... |
Bears About the House, BBC Two review - uphill struggle to save hunted animalsWednesday, 22 July 2020
Sun bears and moon bears are probably doomed, so why bother? Wildlife trafficking is a hugely profitable worldwide criminal enterprise, with small charities (fingers in the dyke, anyone?) doing their best to stem the flow. Read more... |
The Real Eastenders, Channel 4 review - timewarp on the ThamesWednesday, 22 July 2020
This quirky little film about the Isle of Dogs (Channel 4), a vanishing fragment of the old London docklands overshadowed by the Canary Wharf skyscrapers while its traditional homes are usurped by new and unloveable tower blocks,... Read more... |
Institute, BBC Four review – masculinity and memory in a nightmarish world of workMonday, 20 July 2020
Missing the office? Or dreading the day you have to return? What’s your relationship to the people you work with and for, and how does it intersect with your personal life? Do your paymasters know you? Do they care about you? Are there days when the routine and the hierarchy of it all just feels like a spirit-crushing game? Read more... |
Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm, BBC Four review - the amazing story of Britain's own honky chateauSaturday, 18 July 2020
Farms have played quite a large part in the history of rock, not just in terms of those wealthy stars who retire to one, tending sheep and making cheese. The festivals at Woodstock, the Isle of Wight and Glastonbury all took place on farms but before everyone turned on, tuned in and dropped out in the mud and the sun, two farmers in a village on the Welsh borders had set up the world’s first residential recording studio. Read more... |
The Plot Against America, Sky Atlantic review - fascism comes to 1940s USAWednesday, 15 July 2020
Based on Philip Roth’s 2004 novel of the same name, The Plot Against America flashes back to the global turbulence of the 1940s to depict a counterfactual America that turns to the dark side. Read more... |
The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, BBC Two review - how the Aussie tycoon acquired huge political leverageWednesday, 15 July 2020
As an opening line to BBC Two's new three-part series, “Rupert Murdoch is an enigma” failed to set pulses racing. Read more... |
Mrs America, BBC Two review - how a conservative revolutionary scuppered the Equal Rights AmendmentThursday, 09 July 2020
In the midst of our increasingly confrontational politics of race and gender, it was a timely move to make this series (on BBC Two) about Seventies radical feminism and the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the USA, even if... Read more... |
The Choir: Singing for Britain Finale, BBC Two review - stirring songs from a garden shedWednesday, 08 July 2020
Once again the incredible healing powers of Gareth Malone swung into action, as his quest to find a universal anthem for the Covid crisis boiled up to a climax (BBC Two). Read more... |
The Battle of Britain, Channel 5 review - 80th anniversary of the RAF's finest hourWednesday, 08 July 2020
The notion of massed aircraft dogfighting over southern England seems inconceivable now, but the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 was all too horribly real for its participants. 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.
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