tv
How to Steal Pigs and Influence People, Channel 4 review - the arcane world of the online vegan influencersWednesday, 15 January 2020
Filmmaker Tom Costello’s opening question in this quixotic but fascinating documentary for Channel 4 deftly skewered the journey he was about to take us on. Was making change or finding fame more important? Read more...
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Deadwater Fell, Channel 4 review - dark murder mystery in a Scottish villageSaturday, 11 January 2020
An idyllic Scottish classroom full of happy children making sponge paintings of flowers with two enthusiastic young teachers – clearly, doom is in the air. Here comes that sense of dread again a little later at a ceilidh in a village hall, with everyone trying a little too hard to look happy. Read more... |
White House Farm, ITV review - gripping opener of true crime dramaThursday, 09 January 2020
It's the smallest lies that can bring you down. When he is asked by a detective how he got on with his family, who have just been murdered in a mass shooting at their Essex farm, Jeremy Bamber (Freddie Fox) says: “Really well. Read more... |
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle, BBC Four review - meticulous account of a haunting American tragedyWednesday, 08 January 2020
It happened 42 years ago, but the mass suicide of 900 people at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana is still an event that freezes the blood. They were members of the Peoples Temple, the semi-totalitarian cult founded by Jim Jones, who began as a mere egomaniac but morphed into a bullying dictator convinced of his own God-like powers. Read more... |
Cornwall: This Fishing Life, BBC Two review - a precarious trade on the ocean waveWednesday, 08 January 2020
Series about fishing have become a durable mini-genre, including the likes of Deadliest Catch and Saltwater Heroes. Read more... |
Dracula, BBC One review - horrific, and not in a good wayThursday, 02 January 2020
“Bela Lugosi’s dead,” as Bauhaus sang, in memory of the star of 1931’s Dracula. But of course death has never been an impediment to the career of the enfanged Transylvanian blood-sucker. Filmed and televisualised almost as frequently as Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula would doubtless join the cockroaches as the only entities to survive a thermonuclear holocaust. Read more... |
Dame Edna Rules the Waves / The Graham Norton Show, BBC One review - two ways to run a talk showTuesday, 31 December 2019
Talk shows can go one of two ways. You can create a welcoming space where your guests can kick their shoes off and start telling daringly revealing anecdotes. Alternatively, there’s the Dame Edna formula where the guests are cannon fodder for the host. Read more... |
The Trial of Christine Keeler, BBC One review - famous sex scandal makes uneven dramaMonday, 30 December 2019
One good Sixties brouhaha deserves another. After last year’s triumphant revival of the Jeremy Thorpe affair in A Very English Scandal, here comes the sleazy saga of John Profumo, the Conservative Secretary of State for War who was forced to resign from Harold Macmillan’s government in 1963. The cause of his downfall was his brief affair with model and showgirl Christine Keeler, who was 19 when Profumo first met her. Read more... |
Best of 2019: TVMonday, 30 December 2019
As symbolic moments go, the arrival of Martin Scorsese's new gangster epic The Irishman on Netflix took some beating. Read more... |
Liam Gallagher: As It Was, BBC Two review - no expletives deleted in exhausting rock-docMonday, 30 December 2019
Liam Gallagher knows exactly how "fucking fantastic… and fucking shit I am", and proceeds to tell us so for 85 minutes. This 10-year documentary project came about as a result of director Charlie Lightening’s friendship with Gallagher, formed as Oasis came to a predictable halt. 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...
Pimpinone, Royal Opera in the Linbury Theatre review - farce...
Full marks to the Royal Opera for good planning: one first night knocking us all sideways with the darkest German operatic tragedy followed by...
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A traditional Korean house has appeared at Tate Modern....
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review - total music drama
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Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street re...
Does it spark joy? Yes, definitely...and maybe we music critics should ask the Marie Kondo question more often. London-based vocalist/lyricist...
The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music,...
The makers of The Extraordinary Miss Flower are billing it as a “performance film”, a subspecies of the concert-movie...
Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade review - how the gr...
Purporting to be a documentary about John Lennon in the 1970s, Borrowed Time is no such thing....