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Universal Credit: Inside the Welfare State, BBC Two review - drowning in a bureaucratic quagmireWednesday, 05 February 2020
The benefits system is feared for its resemblance to a vast poisonous swamp, from whose clutches many travellers fail to return. Universal Credit began to be rolled out in 2013, having been announced in 2010 by Conservative work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, and was supposed to bulldoze a path through the welfare jungle. However, it remains mired in controversy. Read more... |
Baghdad Central, Channel 4 review - thriller set in the aftermath of the Iraq warTuesday, 04 February 2020
Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji of the Iraqi police may be set to become one of those classically dog-eared, depressed and down-at-heel detectives who have proliferated in crime fiction. He could join a lineage that includes Martin Cruz Smith’s battered Russian sleuth Arkady Renko, or Bernie Gunther, anti-hero of Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy. Or he may create his own category of one. Read more... |
Shock of the Nude with Mary Beard, BBC Two review - when does art become erotica?Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Are you a fan of oysters or Marmite? Mary Beard is not to everybody’s taste, but love her or loathe her she is not only a distinguished academic but a ubiquitous writer and presenter of classical histories, connected travels, and ruminations on societal problems. Read more... |
Belsen: Our Story, BBC Two review - inside the unfathomable horror of the HolocaustWednesday, 29 January 2020
The 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz reminds us once again of the unfathomable horror of the Holocaust. The revival of anti-semitism in our own country and elsewhere is why it’s worth telling these terrible stories again and again. Read more... |
Young, Sikh and Proud, BBC One review - siblings divided by their attitudes to faithWednesday, 29 January 2020
Journalist Sunny Hundal has a long track record as a writer and blogger concerned with issues of race, politics and ethnicity. Read more... |
Stewart Copeland's Adventures in Music, BBC Four review - an essay on the emotional power of musicSaturday, 25 January 2020
Drums away: Stewart Copeland, drummer with The Police and a score of other groups, composer for films, video games and operas, now beams enthusiastically at us from the small screen.
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Crazy Delicious, Channel 4 review - the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV ?Wednesday, 22 January 2020
The race continues to create the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV. Channel 4’s new brainchild, Crazy Delicious, finds the culinary nutty professor Heston Blumenthal teaming up with fellow-judges Carla Hall and Niklas Ekstedt to become the “Gods of Food”. Read more... |
Chris Packham: 7.7 Billion People and Counting, BBC Two review - is it too late to get population growth under control?Wednesday, 22 January 2020
We hear plenty of debate about climate change and its disastrous potential, but the ballooning growth of the world’s population may be the most critical issue facing humankind. Read more... |
The Outsider, Sky Atlantic review - double trouble in small-town GeorgiaTuesday, 21 January 2020
Stephen King’s novels have generated an impressive lineage of successful adaptations. Read more... |
Cobra, Sky 1 review - entertaining mix of political mischief and cosmic chaosSaturday, 18 January 2020
If nothing else, you’d want to tune in to Cobra (Sky 1) for its cast. Robert Carlyle is steely and decisive as Prime Minister Robert Sutherland, his indispensable fixer Anna Marshall is played by Victoria “Queen Mother” Hamilton, and David Haig oozes bullying malevolence as Home Secretary Archie Glover-Morgan. Read more... |
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