tv | Page 78 | The Arts Desk

tv

Mrs Wilson finale, BBC One review - stranger than fiction

Saskia Baron Wednesday, 12 December 2018

As the priest said, "Understanding comes first, then forgiveness". Thus the rather enjoyable (if slightly overstretched) Mrs Wilson came to a not exactly happy, but certainly forgiving, ending. Ruth Wilson held the screen over three episodes of this period drama, playing her own real life grandmother Alison Wilson.

Comment

Sir Cliff Richard: 60 Years in Public and in Private, ITV review - bachelor boy bounces back

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 11 December 2018

It was when he was on holiday at his agreeable estate in the Algarve in August 2014 that Cliff Richard got a phone call telling him his Berkshire home was being raided by the South Yorkshire Police.

Care, BBC One review - a blunt but powerful polemic

Adam Sweeting Monday, 10 December 2018

You wouldn’t turn to Jimmy McGovern for a drawing-room comedy, but there’s no doubting his gift for seizing big issues and turning into them raw, bleeding chunks of drama. You’re either for him or against him, but if you’re against him he’d love to grab you by the throat and shake you into seeing it his way.

Barbra Streisand: Becoming an Icon 1942-1984, BBC Four review - the way she was

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 09 December 2018

Perhaps belatedly prompted by the release of Barbra Streisand’s new album Walls, the worst-selling disc in her 55 years with Columbia Records, this documentary was an uncritical celebration of Babs’s brilliant career from her first stage appearances in the late Fifties to the joys of Hello, Dolly!, The Way We...

Read more...

The Little Drummer Girl, BBC One, series finale review - Le Carré drama comes to the boil at last

Jasper Rees Monday, 03 December 2018

Was The Little Drummer Girl commissioned by algorithm? Those who liked The Night Manager might reasonably have been supposed to enjoy another le Carré adaptation. The two dramas had DNA in common.

Comment

Kidding, Sky Atlantic review - tears of a clown

Owen Richards Friday, 30 November 2018

There’s no one right way to grieve. It cuts through everyone differently, whether reverting to childhood traits or out-of-character impulses. The person you lose might mean one thing to you, and something completely different to someone else; it can hit you both differently, and equally hard.

Death and Nightingales, BBC Two, review - slow, lyrical, slightly dull

Jasper Rees Thursday, 29 November 2018

And now for something completely different from The Fall. The nerve-shredding drama from Northern Ireland was written by Allan Cubitt and featured, as its resident psychopathic hottie, Jamie Dornan (pictured below).

Comment

Mrs Wilson, BBC One review - real-life secrets and lies

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 28 November 2018

In which the titular Mrs Wilson is played by her real-life granddaughter Ruth Wilson, in an intriguing tale of subterfuge both personal and professional. The curtain rose over suburban west London in the 1960s, where Alison Wilson was married to Alec (Iain Glen) and was the proud mother of their two sons.