tue 08/10/2024

tv

Cheat, ITV review - fear and loathing in academia

Adam Sweeting

As fans of Inspector Morse are well aware, there are plenty of snakes lurking in the grass at our premier seats of learning.

Read more...

After Life, Netflix, review - Ricky Gervais's grief emoji

Jasper Rees

The limitless goodwill generated by The Office earned Ricky Gervais the right to do and say as he pleased. Thus, hosting the Golden Globes, he was toweringly rude to Hollywood royalty. In Extras he gleefully portrayed celebrities as vain and ghastly. In The Invention of Lying he explored the logical consequence of a world in which people say what they really think.

Read more...

Leaving Neverland: Michael Jackson and Me, Channel 4 review - sordid revelations from the court of the King of Pop

Adam Sweeting

Not just the Peter Pan of Pop, but also its very own Houdini. With the aid of shed-loads of money, an illusion-spinning PR machine and the most aggressive lawyers that money could buy, Michael Jackson managed to make it to his premature exit in 2009 without being sent to jail.

Read more...

Derry Girls, Series Two, Channel 4 review - welcome back, gang

Owen Richards

When Derry Girls premiered on Channel 4 in early 2018, there was little fanfare. But it’s been a whirlwind year for the four girls from Derry (and the wee English lad), capturing British hearts before conquering the US through Netflix.

Read more...

Fleabag, Series 2 review - a standing ovation

Veronica Lee

What a super-talented woman Phoebe Waller-Bridge is.

Read more...

Marianne Faithfull, BBC Four review - more than a vagabond life

Tim Cumming

French actor and director Sandrine Bonnaire’s warm, langorous film portrait of la Faithfull may not the first – that accolade goes to Michael Collins’s feature-length Dreaming my Dreams (2000), featuring Mick, Keith, Anita and John Dunbar – but it does feel like a...

Read more...

Soft Cell: Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, BBC Four review - an electro-pop celebration

Thomas H Green

“It’s never been about the success to me,” says Marc Almond, “It’s always been about the adventure.” It’s a great attitude that’s writ large over the band’s uncompromising flame-out of an early Eighties pop career.

Read more...

Strike Back: Silent War, Sky 1 review - bullets, bodies, baddies and a stolen atom bomb

Adam Sweeting

Some things never change. About 60 per cent of this first show in Strike Back’s seventh series consisted of Mac McAllister (Warren Brown) and his intrepid Section 20 squad mowing down members of a Malaysian triad gang with automatic weapons.

Read more...

This Time with Alan Partridge, BBC One review - a man out of time?

Adam Sweeting

“I’ve remained a vital presence on the fringes of TV Land,” argues Alan Partridge in an interview with Radio Times, the man whose latest claim to… well, not fame, but at least he has been presenting Mid Morning Matters on North Norfolk Digital.

Read more...

Curfew, Sky One, review - belt up for a budget-price Mad Max

Jasper Rees

Curfew (Sky One) is a new drama that begins as it means to go on, roaring from nought to 60 with a wildly implausible car chase. An electric blue McLaren is haring and weaving through London, with the law in hot pursuit. Forget the computer-generated high-speed U-turn and the armour-plated panda cars.

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...