fri 15/08/2025

tv

The Capture, BBC One, series finale review - nimble drama alive with twists

Jasper Rees

What did we learn at the end of The Capture (BBC One)? A rice jar is a good place to hide USB sticks. It’s possible to withhold the opening credits for 11 whole minutes. A green coat works exceptionally well with light blue eyes and shoulder-length auburn hair.

Read more...

Doing Drugs for Fun, Channel 5 review - why the cocaine trade is no laughing matter

Adam Sweeting

Monday night’s first episode of this three-part series was a bit ordinary, as it introduced its cast of British recreational cocaine users and explained why their habit may be ill-advised.

Read more...

The Great British Bake Off, Episode 7, Channel 4 review - bakers hampered by pointless celebrities

Adam Sweeting

What’s extraordinary about Bake Off is not just the staggering complexity of the cooking challenges, but the amount of technical shenanigans that go into turning it into a finished programme (actually, spoiler-averse Channel 4 had teasingly left the ending off my preview version of this week’s show, but...

Read more...

Catherine the Great, Sky Atlantic review - a glorious role for Helen Mirren only gets better

Tom Birchenough

“I want something Russian…” It’s with such a cry that Helen Mirren, bored by the bizarrely transgressive masked ball that comes at the close of the first episode of Catherine the Great, gets the dancing going: nothing from the imported fashions of Europe will do for her, and the music duly strikes up, a soupily romantic melody on violin, the quintessence, you might think, of mythic "Russianness”.

Read more...

The Capture, Episode 5, BBC One review - the man who knew too much

Adam Sweeting

Five episodes ago, BBC One's The Capture set off at a cracking pace with the apparent abduction and murder of barrister Hannah Roberts by army lance-corporal Shaun Emery.

Read more...

Snackmasters, Channel 4 review - superchefs take the clone-a-KitKat challenge

Adam Sweeting

The themes of food and cookery have already been boiled until the bottom of the saucepan melted, but TV commissioning editors can’t stop searching for new twists in the formula.

Read more...

World on Fire, BBC One review - more melodrama than drama

Adam Sweeting

For his new drama series for BBC One, writer Peter Bowker (The A Word, Monroe etc) has taken as his canvas no less than a panorama of Europe in 1939, just as World War Two is breaking out.

Read more...

My Life is Murder, Alibi review - whimsical tales of detection from Down Under

Adam Sweeting

Lucy Lawless achieved cult status in the Nineties fantasy classic Xena: Warrior Princess, and later became a regular in such disparate creations as Battlestar Galactica and Parks and Recreation. In My Life is Murder, she joins the ever-expanding ranks of TV ‘tecs as Melbourne-based investigator Alexa Crowe.

Read more...

Saving Lives at Sea, BBC Two review - derring-do on the ocean wave with the RNLI

Adam Sweeting

Learning support officer. Student. Chip shop owner. Mobile caterer. Gym owner. These were the day jobs of some of the volunteers featured in this week’s portfolio of tales on BBC Two from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who would all doubtless deny that they do anything heroic. For the people they rescue, they most certainly do.

Read more...

The $50m Art Swindle, BBC Two review - ramblin' gamblin' man comes home to roost

Adam Sweeting

“It’s nice to make money – lots of money,” said Michel Cohen, former high-flying New York art dealer turned debtor, jailbird and fugitive. He made oodles of the stuff and then lost it all, leaving a string of wealthy art collectors and galleries to lick their wounds over the colossal debts he never repaid.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Alien: Earth, Disney+ review - was this interstellar journey...

Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie from 1979 was an all-time sci-fi/horror classic, and even an endless stream of sequels and spin-offs...

Album: Tom Grennan - Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Did...

Who’d have guessed that a dude who first came to attention a decade ago guesting on a cheesy Chase & Status drum & bass track would likely...

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, RSC, Stratford review - not qui...

I have two guilty secrets about the theatre – okay, two I’m prepared to own up to right here, right now. I quite enjoy some...

Orpheus and Eurydice, Opera Queensland/SCO, Edinburgh Intern...

There’s a lot to shout about in this Orpheus, especially the way it looks. In a thin year for staged opera at the Edinburgh International...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Eric Rushton / Bella Hull

Eric Rushton, Monkey Barrel ...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Horse of Jenin / Nowhere

The Horse of Jenin, Pleasance Dome ...

Beating Hearts review - kiss kiss, slam slam

Andrew Garfield was 29 when he played the teenage Spiderman and Jennifer Grey was 27 when she took on a decade-younger-than-her character called “...

Album: Emma Smith - Bitter Orange

Emma Smith, one time Puppini Sister, has established herself over the past decade or so as one of the UK’s most compelling jazz singers, now...

BBC Proms: Anoushka Shankar 'Chapters' review - so...

You can't explain stage presence like Anoushka Shankar’s. It just "is". When she steps out in front of a completely packed Royal Albert Hall, and...