sat 27/09/2025

tv

The Beatles: Made on Merseyside, BBC Four review - when the Fab Four were five

james Woodall

Documentaries about the 20th century’s most fabled quartet keep coming.

Read more...

Dead Pixels, E4, review - gamers for a laugh

Jasper Rees

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 parliament

Adam Sweeting

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?

Adam Sweeting

 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 mainstream

Markie Robson-Scott

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 north

Jasper Rees

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?

Adam Sweeting

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 explained

Veronica Lee

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...

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...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Goldscheider, Brother Tree Sound, Kings Place - music of hop...

Last night’s concert at Kings Place was a programme of...

The Billionaire Inside Your Head, Hampstead Theatre review -...

What would it be like to be driven by OCD urges into idolising Elon Musk and aspiring to be one of his tribe of tech bros? In his debut...

Doja Cat's 'Vie' starts well but soon tails o...

Doja Cat is a fascinating one-off. She’s a rap-centric...

Lacrima, Barbican review - riveting, lucid examination of th...

So often the focus – in the coverage of a royal wedding – is the story of the woman wearing the bridal dress. While every...

Joanna Pocock: Greyhound review - on the road again

Joanna Pocock’s second full-length book, Greyhound, tells the story of a single journey made and remade. In 2006, after the death of her...

Entertaining Mr Sloane, Young Vic review - funny, flawed but...

Playwright Joe Orton was a merry prankster. His main work – such as Loot (1965) and What the Butler Saw...

Helleur-Simcock, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester r...

Rachel Helleur-Simcock’s first appearance with the Hallé after appointment as leader of its cello section was auspicious – she became the soloist...

Mariah Carey is still 'Here for It All' after an e...

One of the great moments of Private Eye magazine’s fustiness in recent years was putting Mariah Carey in Pseud’s Corner, for the quote about how...