tv
Rock ‘n’ Roll Island: Where Legends Were Born, BBC Four review - remembering rock's big bangSaturday, 28 March 2020
“Friday night is Amami night” – that was the ad that ran from the 1920s through to the 1950s for a brand of “setting lotion”, a delightfully old-fashioned term. Those were the days when young women stayed home and did their hair, in preparation for a Saturday night out. Read more... |
ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads, Netflix review - a story well told but marred by clichéd styleSaturday, 28 March 2020
Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson’s reputation was much enhanced by the story – never substantiated – that he’d met with the devil one night at a crossroads, and was miraculously taught exquisite guitar licks that astounded his juke-joint audiences and later the world. Read more... |
Mister Winner, BBC2 review - gentle comedy about one of life's losersThursday, 26 March 2020
Spencer Jones, a clownish stand-up, has been responsible for some the cheeriest, daftest and most heart-warming shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, where he has twice been nominated in Dave's Edinburgh Comedy Awards (ECA). Others may know him from his scene-stealing turn in Upstart Crow, where he channels Ricky Gervais in the character of Will Kempe. Read more... |
Our Girl, Series 5, BBC One review - where soap and warfare collideWednesday, 25 March 2020
Some things never change in Our Girl. At the beginning of 2018’s Series 4, military heroine Georgie Lane (Michelle Keegan) had been traumatised by the death of her fiance Elvis Harte, killed in Afghanistan at the end of Series 3. Read more... |
Comedy Against Living Miserably, Dave review - standups tread the boards for CALM charityWednesday, 25 March 2020
This was the third collaboration between Dave and the mental health charity CALM (Comedy Against Living Miserably), hosted at EartH in Dalston by Joel Dommett. Read more... |
Putin: A Russian Spy Story, Channel 4 review - inside the mind of a man without a faceTuesday, 24 March 2020
Director Nick Green’s new three-parter follows on the heels of his A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad and comparisons are sure to be made between his two subjects. Read more... |
Slipknot Unmasked: All Out Life, BBC iPlayer – masked metalheads reveal allMonday, 23 March 2020
There aren’t many metal bands like Slipknot. For a start, the nine-piece line-up consists of the standard vocalist, two guitars, bass and drums – but then there are also two percussionists, sampler and decks. Their music is consistently ferocious, with a hardcore, high-speed, ragging thump and semi-comprehensible lyrics that leaves no room for chart-friendly power ballads. Read more... |
The English Game, Netflix review - it's the toffs versus the workers in this version of sporting historySaturday, 21 March 2020
Julian Fellowes admits he knows little about football and has always hated sport in general, but this hasn’t prevented him from writing a TV series (for Netflix) about football’s 19th century origins. Read more... |
Taking Control: The Dominic Cummings Story, BBC Two review - disruptive political maverick eludes pigeonholingThursday, 19 March 2020
This patchwork of interviews and comments from male journalists and politicians interspersed with clips from television news and films, from The Godfather to The Avengers, was a zig-zag narrative of Dominic Cummings’s unique career as a political strategist. Read more... |
Feel Good, Channel 4 and Netflix review - a fresh, bingeable comedy that digs deep but feels mildThursday, 19 March 2020
“I am not intense.” That declaration arrives early in Feel Good, the new Channel 4 and Netflix romantic comedy fronted by comedian Mae Martin, who plays a fictionalised version of herself. Over Mae’s shoulder, we see a literal trash fire. She’s lit up the evidence of a past drug addiction. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Bellringers, Hampstead Theatre review - mordant comedy about...
As hurricanes rip into the American Gulf states with increasing ferocity, Eastern Europe disappears underwater and even the gentle...
Ludwig, BBC One review - entertaining spin on the brainy det...
The latest incarnation of David Mitchell, TV actor, looks at first sight much like the familar one from Peep Show and Back...
Ellen DeGeneres, Netflix Special review - no mea culpa and f...
Hard to imagine it now, but just a few years ago Ellen DeGeneres was one of America’s biggest daytime TV stars; her chatshow The Ellen...
The Hardacres, Channel 5 review - a fishy tale of upward mob...
Set in Yorkshire in the 1890s, and based on the novels...
Juno and the Paycock, Gielgud Theatre review - a shockingly...
"Captain" Jack Boyle is a fantasist, a mythmaker, a storyteller. He relishes an audience – usually his sidekick, Joxer. There is a theatricality...
Hardenberger, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall,...
Two splendid pieces of orchestral virtuosity began and finished the second Saturday concert by the BBC Philharmonic under John Storgårds at the...
Angry and Young, Almeida Theatre review - vigorous and illum...
Why should we not look back in anger? With the Oasis reunion tour in the news recently, the title of John Osborne’s seminal kitchen-sink drama –...
Blond Eckbert, English Touring Opera review - dark deeds afo...
Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert, presented by English Touring Opera...
Songs We Carry, Ana Silvera and Saied Silbak, Kings Place re...
As the Middle East continues to fragment in hate and horror, a tragic unfolding of events with roots reaching back to the middle of the last...
The Marrriage of Figaro, Opera Project, Tobacco Factory, Bri...
The Marriage of Figaro is undoubtedly one of the greatest operas ever written....