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George Michael: Freedom, Channel 4 review - just a supersized commercial?Tuesday, 17 October 2017
You might expect a posthumous 90-minute documentary – and that’s before you insert the ad breaks – about one of the biggest stars in British pop music over the last 30 years to shed some light on how said artist became so huge, but also how his career slowed to a crawl and his life came to such a depressing end. Read more... |
Jonas Kaufmann: Tenor for the Ages, BBC Four review - a musical megastar with sword and shortbreadMonday, 16 October 2017
Now we know who sent Jonas Kaufmann the Union Jack boxer shorts for the Last Night of the Proms. Whether the sender’s identity is the bigger surprise, or the hint of ambiguity over whether the "Greatest Tenor in the World" had previously heard of one of Britain’s favourite baritones – well, you decide. And no, we don’t learn who threw the knickers at him from the arena. Read more... |
Lucy Worsley's Nights at the Opera, BBC Two review - there's anti-elitism, and there's infantilismSunday, 15 October 2017
The first thing to say about Lucy Worsley’s Nights at the Opera (BBC Two) is that it is laser-aimed at those who have not enjoyed many nights at the opera. Enjoyed in the sense of attended; also, probably, in the sense of enjoyed. Read more... |
Russia 1917: Countdown to Revolution, BBC Two review - words stronger than pictures 100 years onWednesday, 11 October 2017
It’s getting to that time of the century. A hundred years ago to the month, if not quite the day, the Winter Palace was stormed, and the Russian Revolution came to pass. Read more... |
Snowfall, BBC Two review - blizzard hits South CentralMonday, 09 October 2017
An American TV show about drugs and drug dealers? How frightfully novel. At least The Deuce (showing now on Sky Atlantic) is about pornography instead. Read more... |
Black Lake, Series Finale, BBC Four review – Nordic noir comes to an unsatisfying endSunday, 08 October 2017
Beware – here be spoilers, though if you can make them out through the blizzard of cliché that engulfed the last double-bill of this thunderingly underwhelming Nordic noir then you’re already ahead of me. Read more... |
Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business, BBC Four review - good times had by allSunday, 08 October 2017
One New Year’s Eve in the 1970s, hot young session musicians Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were assured by Grace Jones that they could penetrate the inner sanctum of Studio 54 by dropping her name at the door. A doorman thought otherwise and invited them to "fuck off". Read more... |
Basquiat: Rage to Riches review, BBC Two – death rides an equine skeletonSunday, 08 October 2017
An irresistible tragedy: young man of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, from Brooklyn, multilingual, brilliantly precocious, who left his middle class home to turn to street life in Manhattan, metamorphosing into a mesmerising graffiti artist. SAMO© was his response to "how are you?" Same old shit... Read more... |
Doctor Foster, Series 2 finale, BBC One review - revenge is a dish best not served twiceWednesday, 04 October 2017
The second helping of Doctor Foster (BBC One) looked for a long time as if it would taste exactly like the first. Another plate of hell hath no fury, please, with extra bile on the side. Read more... |
The Last Post, BBC One review - sundown on the EmpireMonday, 02 October 2017
Peter Moffat, author of Silk and The Village, has turned his sights on the last days of Empire for his latest series. Specifically, Moffat has mined his own memories of growing up in a British Army family in Aden in the 1960s, where his father was in the Military Police. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
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