tv
Game of Thrones, Series 7, Sky Atlantic review – slow, but it's just the beginningTuesday, 18 July 2017
If nothing else, Game of Thrones has surely been the greatest boon to the British acting profession since they invented tights and greasepaint. Part of the fun is trying to think of somebody who hasn’t been in it yet. Read more... |
I Know Who You Are, BBC Four review - preposterous but hypnoticMonday, 17 July 2017
All’s fair in love and law in I Know Who You Are. BBC Four’s latest Euro-import hails from Spain and, as per the channel’s practice, is coming at you in intense double doses, two 70-minute episodes every Saturday night. Read more... |
Orange Is the New Black, Season 5, Netflix review - counterpoint in a three-day prison riotFriday, 14 July 2017
Rippling outward from the initial story of a seemingly nice WASP woman who finds herself having to adapt in a women's prison, Orange Is the New Black quickly developed into the most multilayered, almost indigestibly rich of American TV dramas. Read more... |
GLOW, Netflix review - not quite comedy or dramaThursday, 13 July 2017
How much plotting went into GLOW? It has been gussied up by the people who brought you the jumbo Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black. Both shows are based on a true story and feature women of all ethnicities bitching and slapping in a contained environment. In Glow there’s less orange, and less black, but even more bitching and slapping. Read more... |
In the Dark, BBC One review - missing girls mystery promises hidden depthsWednesday, 12 July 2017
Detective Inspector Helen Weeks (MyAnna Buring), having finally cornered a skanky drug-dealer/benefit cheat in a blind alley – and stopped an eager PC from Tasering the woman – is punched in the stomach for her pains. How’s that for a hard-hitting start? Read more... |
Grandad, Dementia and Me, BBC One review - no easy solutions to terrifying mental conditionWednesday, 12 July 2017
The title gave us the true-life plot: this was a grandson’s filmed narrative of something that will touch us all, through acquaintance, friend, family and perhaps ourselves falling victim to some form of dementia. It's a word that covers a myriad of conditions, all of them affecting the mind. Read more... |
Broken, BBC One series finale review - Seán Bean's quiet immensityWednesday, 05 July 2017
The Catholic Church hasn’t enjoyed a good press on screen lately. Nuns punished Irishwomen for their pregnancies in Philomena. Priests interfered with altar boys in Spotlight. And in The Young Pope a Vatican fixated on conservatism and casuistry elects a pontiff who sees himself as a rock star. Read more... |
50 Shades of Gay, Channel 4 review - no better place in the world to be gay?Tuesday, 04 July 2017
It’s half a century since homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England and Wales, so who better to cast his gaze over the lie of the land than stately homo Rupert Everett? Read more... |
Melvyn Bragg on TV, BBC Two review – too many talking heads, too little actionSunday, 02 July 2017
Presumably it seemed like a good idea at the time. Read more... |
Sudan: The Last of the Rhinos, BBC Two review - requiem for disappearing wildlifeThursday, 29 June 2017
“The northern white rhinos are just a symbol of what we do to the natural world,” as one of the contributors to this haunting documentary put it. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
"Captain" Jack Boyle is a fantasist, a mythmaker, a storyteller. He relishes an audience – usually his sidekick, Joxer. There is a theatricality...
Two splendid pieces of orchestral virtuosity began and finished the second Saturday concert by the BBC Philharmonic under John Storgårds at the...
Why should we not look back in anger? With the Oasis reunion tour in the news recently, the title of John Osborne’s seminal kitchen-sink drama –...
Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert, presented by English Touring Opera...
As the Middle East continues to fragment in hate and horror, a tragic unfolding of events with roots reaching back to the middle of the last...
The Marriage of Figaro is undoubtedly one of the greatest operas ever written....
While it does get very cold in the north of Norway, it’s likely that Permafrost’s chosen name reflects a fondness for Howard Devoto’s post-punk...
Just over two weeks before Christmas 1967, The Rolling Stones issued Their Satanic Majesties Request. The album’s title appeared to serve...
Time-travel is a trap in debutante Michael Felker’s...
If you’re looking for an advertisement for how crime doesn’t pay, Joan will do very nicely....