sun 24/08/2025

tv

The Planets, BBC Two review - boy-band boffin rides again

Adam Sweeting

Professor Brian Cox, still looking cheekily boy-band-ish at the age of 51, has made himself a child of the universe. His day job is professor of particle physics at Manchester University, but turn him loose with a camera crew and an unfeasibly large budget and he turns into a starry-eyed cosmic hippy.

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Summer of Rockets, BBC Two review - pride and prejudice in 1950s Britain

Adam Sweeting

Hallelujah! At last the BBC have commissioned a Stephen Poliakoff series that makes you want to come back for episode two (and hopefully all six), thanks to a powerful cast making the most of some perceptively-written roles.

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Alastair Campbell: Depression and Me, BBC Two review - is there an alternative to a life on anti-depressants?

Adam Sweeting

Persistent depression is debilitating and terrifying, as Alastair Campbell illustrated vividly in this punchily-argued film. We first saw him looking like a disturbed, miserable ghost, as he described in his video diary a sudden plunge into depression at New Year, 2018. He seemed to be ebbing away before our eyes.

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Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport, ITV review - 80 million passengers but not much action

Adam Sweeting

It’s remarkable that this meandering observational documentary about the five square mile airport west of London has stretched to a fifth series. Heathrow may have 77,000 staff and expect 80 million passengers to pass through this year, but that doesn’t mean everything they do is interesting.

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Hatton Garden, ITV review - ancient burglars bore again

Jasper Rees

Have we passed peak Hatton Garden? It’s now four years since a gang of old lags pulled off the biggest heist of them all. They penetrated a basement next door to a safe-deposit company, drilled through the wall, and made off with many millions quids’ worth in diamonds, cash and the like.

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Thatcher: A Very British Revolution, BBC Two review - demolishing the boys' club

Marina Vaizey

Is there some tongue-in-cheek irony in BBC Two starting a five-part biographical documentary on Margaret Thatcher this Monday?

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Gentleman Jack, BBC One review - the revolutionary life of Anne Lister

Adam Sweeting

In 2010, Maxine Peake starred in The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, but this new dramatisation of Lister’s life has been gestating in Sally Wainwright’s brain for 20 years, and finally arrives under the auspices of the BBC and HBO.

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Cannes 2019: Too Old to Die Young - nightmarish LA noir

Joseph Walsh

This year, Cannes has been adamantly defending traditional cinema, with more than a few jibes at Netflix (who remain persona non grata at the festival), but that hasn’t stopped them screening two episodes of Nicolas Winding Refn’s new Amazon TV series, Too Old To Die Young.

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What We Do In the Shadows, BBC Two review - black comedy vampire spin-off from cult movie

Saskia Baron

This is a toothsome treat for Sunday nights and one of those rare occasions when the BBC has got hold of the kind of nifty comedy series that Netflix usually pumps out. What We Do in the Shadows started out as a New Zealand vampire flick in 2014.

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David Harewood: Psychosis and Me, BBC Two review - actor confronts his painful past

Saskia Baron

In the week that the Jeremy Kyle show has been yanked permanently off air after the death of one of its vulnerable guests, the timing couldn’t have been better for the BBC to show how sensitively the old-school broadcaster handles contributors with mental health problems.

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