tue 08/07/2025

tv

Charles I: Killing a King, BBC Four review - sad stories of the death of kings

Adam Sweeting

This three-part series by historian Lisa Hilton is a follow-up to her previous effort from last July, Charles I: Downfall of a King (BBC Four).

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Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar, Channel 5 review - a diverting melding of fact and fiction

Veronica Lee

Christmas and Agatha Christie are a very good fit – how better to spend time with your loved ones than sitting down to watch some murder and intrigue together?

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Traces, Alibi review - pedigree cast battles implausible plot

Adam Sweeting

Alibi is usually your one-stop shop for re-runs of Father Brown or Death in Paradise, so well done them for commissioning this new murder mystery.

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How They Built the Titanic, Channel 5 review - the great liner revisited again, but why now?

Adam Sweeting

The appalling fate of the allegedly unsinkable liner Titanic in 1912 has fuelled endless feature films and documentaries, not to mention a dismal drama series by Julian Fellowes (there was also a proposed Titanic II vessel which would have been built in China, but which remains mysteriously un-launched).

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Elizabeth Is Missing, BBC One review - a tender but tough-minded drama about ageing and loss

Jill Chuah Masters

In films, as in life, unreliable narrators are not hard to find. But there is something remarkable about the unreliable narrator of Elizabeth is Missing, BBC One’s newest feature-length drama. Its protagonist, Maud (Glenda Jackson), is unreliable in the extreme – confused, forgetful and emotionally wounded.

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Giri/Haji, Series Finale, BBC Two review - a thriller, but much more besides

Adam Sweeting

Happily, Joe Barton’s tinglingly original thriller (BBC Two) finished as smartly as it began, not by any humdrum tying-up of loose ends but by giving free rein to the story’s ambiguities and impossible choices. If indeed they really were choices.

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The Family Secret, Channel 4 review - lives destroyed by historic sexual abuse

Adam Sweeting

“Restorative Justice Practitioner” sounds like a euphemism for a Mad Max-style lone avenger, but in director Anna Hall's devastating film for Channel 4, it was a woman called Kate whose job was to bring together...

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Takaya: Lone Wolf, BBC Four review - enigmatic predator baffles boffins

Adam Sweeting

Who can explain the mystery of the solitary wolf who has taken up residence on an archipelago off Vancouver Island – the Discovery and Chatham Islands to be precise – and has developed his own unique hunting methods while patrolling his self-contained personal turf?

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The Man Who Saw Too Much, BBC One review – death camp in the clouds

Tom Baily

Boris Pahor is the oldest known survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. In this program, the 106-year-old recounts his experiences as a political refugee and prisoner to the Nazis during their rule in his native Slovenia.

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Tutankhamun with Dan Snow, Channel 5 review - too many presenters spoil Egyptian boy-king doc

Adam Sweeting

It’s claimed that the current world tour of Tutankhamun’s extraordinary treasures will be the last, but they said that about Frank Sinatra too. Whatever, the boy-pharaoh’s life and legend will retain their unprecedented mystique, but no thanks to this first of three programmes fronted by pop-historian Dan Snow.

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