tv
The Little Drummer Girl, BBC One, review - latest Le Carré just passes auditionMonday, 29 October 2018
When after six novels John Le Carré turned away from the Cold War, he turned towards another simmering post-war conflict, between Israel and Islam. The Little Drummer Girl was published in 1983, and filmed a year later with Diane Keaton and Klaus Kinski. Read more... |
Berlin Station, More 4 review - spooks in EurolandFriday, 26 October 2018
It’s eight years since Richard Armitage’s character Lucas North died in Spooks, but now Armitage is back undercover as CIA agent Daniel Miller in Berlin Station. Mind you, it’s already been touch and go – Miller was shot in in Berlin’s Potzdamer Platz in a flash-forward opening sequence, but apparently not fatally. Read more... |
Imagine... Tracey Emin: Where Do You Draw the Line, BBC One review - entertaining but deferentialWednesday, 24 October 2018
It’s been a whirlwind year for Tracey Emin, CBE, RA. Her pink neon sign, “I want my time with you”, greets passengers at St Pancras station, she’s installed bronze birds all over Sydney city centre, she’s making a derelict print works in Margate into a living-space/studio that’s going to be like Rodin’s in Paris but “slightly bigger”, and she’s got married. Read more... |
There She Goes, BBC Four review - mining disability for family comedy?Wednesday, 17 October 2018
What do you do after playing Doctor Who, the dream dad of the nation, quirky and compassionate, the adult who every child knows will be fun? Does it seem like a good idea to play the beleaguered father of a child with special needs? It must do, because David Tennant has now followed Christopher Ecclestone, who played the grandfather of an autistic boy in The A Word. Read more... |
Informer, BBC One review - keeping tabs on terrorWednesday, 17 October 2018
Thanks heavens not all police officers spend their time trying to find “hate crime” on Twitter, or not going to the assistance of colleagues in peril. Take Gabe Waters, for instance, the central character in BBC One’s new undercover-policier. Read more... |
Barneys, Books and Bust Ups, BBC Four review - the Booker Prize at 50Tuesday, 16 October 2018
You had to keep your eyes skinned. Was that Iris Murdoch or AS Byatt, Kingsley Amis or John Banville, Margaret Atwood or Val McDermid – maybe, even, Joanna Lumley? Tables as far as the eye can see, dressed with white tablecloths and crowded with wine glasses. Read more... |
Press, BBC One, series finale review - scarcely credible but highly entertainingThursday, 11 October 2018
It’s difficult to tell whether Press (BBC One) came to praise newspapers or to bury them. The slugfest between preachy liberal do-goodery and mucky market-led skulduggery ended in a score draw, with the main protagonists living to fight another day and speak to their ever more polarised silos. Any sensible viewer might have concluded that the plot was stark-raving amphetamine-enriched baloney. Read more... |
The Bisexual, Channel 4 review - joyless comedy dramaThursday, 11 October 2018
Write about what you know, every nascent novelist is told. Read more... |
Wanderlust, BBC One, series finale review - you can't have your cake and eat itWednesday, 10 October 2018
So Wanderlust (BBC One) has ceased wandering and its angsty parade of characters have left a sentence unfinished for the last time. In the end, where were we, compared to where we’ve been? The final episode opened with Joy, like King Alfred, burning the pancakes. Seemingly her boats had suffered the same fate, atomised under the centrifugal forces of love and lust, but also a mass break-out of grief... Read more... |
Doctor Who, The Woman Who Fell to Earth, BBC One review - a captivating debut from Jodie WhittakerMonday, 08 October 2018
Re-casting a beloved character always carries a measure of risk. Solo: A Star Wars Story relied on the willingness of fans to buy in to Alden Ehrenreich as a younger incarnation of Harrison Ford: the film bombed (you know, in Star Wars terms, since it barely made $400 million). Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
A Very Royal Scandal, Prime Video review - a fairly sound re...
Why do production companies think the world needs yet another reconstituted TV drama involving famous people in infamous situations? Newspapers...
The law's sick voyeurism - director Cédric Kahn on...
The trial of the left-wing intellectual Pierre Goldman, who was charged in April 1970 with four armed robberies, one of which led to the death of...
Album: Katy Perry - 143
Life can be unfair, and Katy Perry can’t be alone in finding herself having to take the rough with the smooth. Still, anyone would have thought...
Nightsleeper, BBC One review - strangers on a runaway train
“Let the train take the strain”, as the old advertising slogan urged us. The train in this...
Notes from Sheepland review - her farm is her canvas
Orla Barry laughed when she was advised to take up sheep farming, and not just because she had no experience. “Orla with the sheep eyes,” she...
The Substance review - Demi Moore as an ageing Hollywood cel...
If you like a body-horror movie to retain a semblance of logic in its plot line, then The Substance – grotesque, gory and finally...
Moby, O2 review - ebullient night of rave'n'rock...
Sometimes a gig suddenly and completely elevates. Such is the case tonight when Moby, on his first UK tour in 12 years, plays “Extreme Ways”, his...
Strange Darling review - love really hurts
“Are you a serial killer?” asks a woman sitting in a pick up truck with a man she just met at a bar. The neon sign from the motel...
The Goldman Case review - blistering French political drama
It’s a bold move to give a UK cinema release to this fierce courtroom drama about a French left-wing intellectual who was assassinated in1979....
Zoë Coombs Marr, Soho Theatre review - stock checks and spre...
You have to admire the ambition of a show called Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life, the latest from Zoe Coombs Marr, which she...