tv
King Lear, BBC Two review - modernised TV adaptation is a mixed blessingTuesday, 29 May 2018
Some have contended that King Lear is unstageable, and perhaps it’s unfilmable too. Read more...
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Hip Hop Evolution, Sky Arts review - foundations of a revolutionSaturday, 26 May 2018
Comprehensively charting hip hop’s rise from the underground to the mainstream is no mean feat, but that’s exactly what Canadian MC Shad aims to do over four hour-long episodes. Originally shown in the US in 2016, and available in full on Netflix, Hip Hop Evolution has finally reached the British box via Sky Arts. Read more... |
Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA, BBC Four review - unexpected facts aplentyThursday, 24 May 2018
“Oh say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light” was a vision of the American flag, that star-spangled banner, riding proud from Francis Scott Key’s patriotic poem of 1814 based on an episode in the War of 1812. Read more... |
Manchester: The Night of the Bomb, BBC Two review - devastating account of the lottery of terrorWednesday, 23 May 2018
“I thought she maybe had superpowers to go that high.” Emilia Senior, 12, watched her sister Eve, 15, thrown into the air by the force of the explosion. Read more... |
A Very English Scandal, BBC One review - making a drama out of a crisisMonday, 21 May 2018
There was a time when Hugh Grant was viewed as a thespian one-trick pony, a floppy-haired fop dithering in a state of perpetual romantic confusion. But things have changed. He was excellent in Florence Foster Jenkins, hilariously self-parodic in Paddington 2, and he’s brilliant in A Very English Scandal (BBC One) as smooth, treacherous Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe. Read more... |
The Handmaid's Tale, Series 2, Channel 4 review - it's not getting any better for OffredMonday, 21 May 2018
Not the least startling element of Bishop Michael Curry’s house-rockin’ sermon at the royal nuptials was his quotation from the old spiritual “There is a balm in Gilead”. Evidently the Bishop was not referring to the endlessly looping nightmare that is The Handmaid’s Tale, where “Gilead” means not balm, but torture, terror, misery and misogyny. Read more... |
Innocent, ITV review - David Collins wants his life backThursday, 17 May 2018
Addressing the baying media on the steps of the courthouse after being acquitted of murdering his wife, for which non-crime he’d spent the last seven years in prison, David Collins (Lee Ingleby) was a bitter and angry man. Read more... |
Patrick Melrose, Sky Atlantic review - an olympiad of substance abuseMonday, 14 May 2018
Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels have been admired for their prose style, scathing wit and pitiless depiction of a rotting aristocracy. Read more... |
The Bridge, BBC Two, series 4 review - Scandi saga is darker than everSaturday, 12 May 2018
In the 1990s, which brought us Morse, Fitz and Jane Tennison, an idea took root that all television detectives must be mavericks. They needed to be moody, dysfunctional, addictive, a bit of an unsolved riddle. These British sleuths were all variations on a glum theme but the scriptwriters knew the limits. Make them suffer, but don’t put them through hell. Read more... |
The Woman in White, Series Finale, BBC One review - good-looking, but flatTuesday, 08 May 2018
Much has been made of this adaptation of The Woman in White having an especial relevance for our times. Read more... |
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