tv
This Time with Alan Partridge, Series finale, BBC One review - back to his worstTuesday, 02 April 2019
Piers Morgan hated This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC One) and predicted it would be pulled before the end of the series. This may be taken as a kitemark of quality. Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series 5, BBC One review - already it's dark, dirty and dangerousMonday, 01 April 2019
Congratulations to Stephen Graham, guest-starring in this fifth season of BBC One’s Line of Duty, for still being alive at the end of episode one, a favour not routinely granted to headline names in Jed Mercurio’s... Read more... |
The Beatles: Made on Merseyside, BBC Four review - when the Fab Four were fiveSaturday, 30 March 2019
Documentaries about the 20th century’s most fabled quartet keep coming. Read more... |
Dead Pixels, E4, review - gamers for a laughFriday, 29 March 2019
The joke in Dead Pixels, a new sitcom on E4, is that there is a better life to be pursued in the fantasy world of videogames. In this alt. environment, outcomes can be controlled by consoles and keyboards, squeamishness about violence can be parked and you are free to be your best or worst self. Read more... |
Road to Brexit, BBC Two review - a rotten historian for a rotten parliamentWednesday, 27 March 2019
Let me be clear. The agonising process of the UK’s departure, or not, from the EU will be an infinite field of academic study over the decades to come. Read more... |
Victoria, Series 3, ITV review - can Her Maj cope with the Age of Revolution?Monday, 25 March 2019
ITV has an enviable knack for creating populist historical costume dramas which never seem to wear out, despite a million rotations on ITV3. Read more... |
Pose, BBC Two review - transgender goes mainstreamFriday, 22 March 2019
NYC, 1987. AIDS is ravaging the city, Reagan’s in power, Trump is in his tower. The American dream is available - to some. And for some of those to whom it’s not, there’s the world of balls, vogueing and competing for trophies. If your family has kicked you out for being gay or trans, the balls are a place where you can strike a pose, find acceptance and make your legendary mark. Read more... |
The Bay, ITV, review - Broadchurch goes northThursday, 21 March 2019
In the 1970s, the Mancunian stand-up Colin Crompton had a famous routine about Morecambe. He characterised Morecambe as “a sort of cemetery with lights” where “they don't bury their dead, they stand them up in bus shelters with a bingo ticket in their hand”. Read more... |
Shetland, Series 5 Finale, BBC One review - Sicario-on-Sea?Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Thing is, a lot of this unpleasantness could have been avoided if DI Jimmy Perez had just watched the second series of The Missing. Read more... |
Showbands, BBC Four review - an Irish cultural phenomenon explainedSaturday, 16 March 2019
Ask most people what a showband is and they’ll give you a blank look. But ask any Irish person (or those born in the Irish diaspora) who is north of 50 and they will probably look misty-eyed. For between the late 1950s and 1980s showbands were a huge Irish cultural phenomenon, and Ardal O’Hanlon was our amiable guide through this brief but illuminating history of them. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Ludwig, BBC One review - entertaining spin on the brainy det...
The latest incarnation of David Mitchell, TV actor, looks at first sight much like the familar one from Peep Show and Back...
Ellen DeGeneres, Netflix Special review - no mea culpa and f...
Hard to imagine it now, but just a few years ago Ellen DeGeneres was one of America’s biggest daytime TV stars; her chatshow The Ellen...
The Hardacres, Channel 5 review - a fishy tale of upward mob...
Set in Yorkshire in the 1890s, and based on the novels...
Juno and the Paycock, Gielgud Theatre review - a shockingly...
"Captain" Jack Boyle is a fantasist, a mythmaker, a storyteller. He relishes an audience – usually his sidekick, Joxer. There is a theatricality...
Hardenberger, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall,...
Two splendid pieces of orchestral virtuosity began and finished the second Saturday concert by the BBC Philharmonic under John Storgårds at the...
Angry and Young, Almeida Theatre review - vigorous and illum...
Why should we not look back in anger? With the Oasis reunion tour in the news recently, the title of John Osborne’s seminal kitchen-sink drama –...
Blond Eckbert, English Touring Opera review - dark deeds afo...
Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert, presented by English Touring Opera...
Songs We Carry, Ana Silvera and Saied Silbak, Kings Place re...
As the Middle East continues to fragment in hate and horror, a tragic unfolding of events with roots reaching back to the middle of the last...
The Marrriage of Figaro, Opera Project, Tobacco Factory, Bri...
The Marriage of Figaro is undoubtedly one of the greatest operas ever written....
Album: Permafrost - The Light Coming Through
While it does get very cold in the north of Norway, it’s likely that Permafrost’s chosen name reflects a fondness for Howard Devoto’s post-punk...