tv
Country Music by Ken Burns, BBC Four review - grand history of fiddlers on the hoofSaturday, 23 November 2019
Ken Burns is the closest American television has to David Attenborough. They may swim in different seas, but they both have an old-school commitment to an ethos that will be missed when it’s gone – the idea that television is a place to communicate information with a sober sense of wonder. Burns’s field is American history in all its breadth and depth. Last time round it was a lapidary decalogue of documentaries about the Vietnam War. Read more...
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Greg Davies: Looking for Kes, BBC Four review - touching insights into the story of Barnsley boy Billy CasperWednesday, 20 November 2019
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Ken Loach’s film Kes, and the 51st of A Kestrel for a Knave, the Barry Hines novel it was based on. The story of Barnsley boy Billy Casper who finds an escape from his painful home life and brutal schooling by training a wild kestrel has resonated down the decades, and the film is regarded as a classic of British cinema, even if the Americans couldn’t understand its Yorkshire accents. Read more... |
Vienna Blood, BBC Two review - psychoanalysis and murder in turn-of-the-century ViennaTuesday, 19 November 2019
“Talking cures and exploring the darkness of men’s souls – are you sure this is a career for a gentleman?” This is Vienna, 1906. Freud is exerting an influence, to the disapproval of many, including the father of cool-as-a-cucumber Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard). Read more... |
The Crown, Series 3, Netflix review - if you want binge TV, there's none finerMonday, 18 November 2019
Although it conforms to a realistic chronology of events, this third season of Peter Morgan’s remarkable voyage around the House of Windsor (on Netflix) has the feel of a sequence of standalone dramas, linked together by its interrelated characters and their shared history. Read more... |
The Accident, Series Finale, Channel 4 review - ambitious mini-series leaves many unanswered questionsFriday, 15 November 2019
Channel 4’s The Accident closed with a bang and a whimper. Jack Thorne provided a definitive answer to his series’ central question, but his characters and subplots petered out in the meantime. Read more... |
Britain’s Lost Masterpieces, Episode Three, BBC Four review – more than a bit of BotticelliThursday, 14 November 2019
Once again the whodunit becomes the whoforgedit in the newest installment of the Britain’s Lost Masterpieces series. Read more... |
Gold Digger, BBC One review - Julia Ormond tackles those mid-life bluesWednesday, 13 November 2019
A tip of the hat to Julia Ormond for boldly going where many an actress might have chosen not to. In this new six-parter by Marnie Dickens, she plays Julia Day, a mother of three who’s just divorced her husband and is turning 60. Read more... |
Ant Middleton and Liam Payne: Straight Talking, Sky 1 review - when the commando met the pop starWednesday, 13 November 2019
“What is wrong with us? What are we doing here?” Liam Payne asked the camera, as we neared the end of his jaunt round picturesque Namibia with his quizmaster Ant Middleton. The short answer would be “it’s for the publicity, you idiot,” but of course he knows that full well. He’d just leapt off a cliff face and swung in wide circles on a rope above the russet-coloured desert far below. Read more... |
World on Fire, BBC One, series finale review - may this fine war drama fight onMonday, 11 November 2019
A bit like all those people on the home front in 1940 (but only a little bit), we sit and nervously wait for news. Is World on Fire (BBC One) still listed among the living? Or even now is someone typing up the letter and sticking it in a brown envelope? Read more... |
Arena: Everything is Connected - George Eliot's Life, BBC Four review - innovative film brings the Victorian novelist into the presentMonday, 11 November 2019
Gillian Wearing’s Arena documentary Everything is Connected (BBC Four) is a quietly innovative biography of an author whose works still resonate with their readers and the country within which she wrote. Read more... |
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