mon 18/08/2025

tv

Doctor Foster, Series 2, BBC One review - belief suspended for a pacy and tense return

Barney Harsent

They say that living well is the best revenge. To be fair, they also say it’s a dish best served cold and I’m pretty sure they’re thinking of gazpacho, so I’m not entirely clear how much real meaning is to be found in these dictums.

Read more...

Imagine... Alma Deutscher: Finding Cinderella, BBC One review - beguiling profile of a musical prodigy

graham Rickson

Morag Tinto’s documentary is a profile of composer Alma Deutscher, who hit the headlines at the end of last year when her opera based on the Cinderella story premiered in...

Read more...

Top of the Lake: China Girl, BBC Two, series finale review - torpor not trauma

Mark Sanderson

So who killed Cinnamon? Six weeks ago we saw the strangled sex-worker – packed in a pink suitcase – pushed into Bondi Bay. The finale of Top of the Lake: China Girl withheld enlightenment. Puss, the chief suspect, denied responsibility. Why would the baby-farmer destroy such a valuable (pregnant) asset?

Read more...

Educating Greater Manchester, Channel 4 review - a study of hope, humanity and heart

Barney Harsent

Cast your minds back, if you will, to 2011. Remember Jamie Oliver’s Celebrity Fight School?

Read more...

The Great British Bake Off, Channel 4 review – a cake with adverts is still a cake

Barney Harsent

By the outrage it prompted, you’d be forgiven for thinking that The Great British Bake Off’s move to Channel 4 was a national disaster. If only the public felt so indignant about the sale of the Post Office, or the creeping privatisation of a beleaguered NHS… but hey-ho, cakes it is, then. 

Read more...

Trust Me, BBC One, series finale review - drama about fake doctor was also pretending

Jasper Rees

Trust Me made an eponymous plea to the audience. Its implausible premise – that a nurse might steal a doctor’s identity and land a job in A&E – called for your credulity.

Read more...

Strike: The Cuckoo's Calling, BBC One review - JK Rowling's debut in crime bows most promisingly

Tom Birchenough

There’s a new ‘tec in town. Cormoran Strike may look like one of life’s losers – he’s on the edge of bankruptcy, sleeps in the office, and what passes for a personal life is a right mess – but in Tom Burke’s portrayal I suspect he’s going to be winning audiences in a big way.

Read more...

Wasting Away, Channel 4 review - we can't fix people while the NHS is broken

Barney Harsent

Journalist Mark Austin is no stranger to conflict, having reported from war-torn landscapes including Rwanda, Iraq and even the ITN newsdesk. However, when the battle lines were drawn closer to home and involved an enemy he couldn’t see, the veteran journalist found himself in unfamiliar territory and without any kind of roadmap. 

Read more...

The State, Channel 4 review - dishonest portrait of British jihadis

Jasper Rees

It’s a burning question of western civilisation: what persuades young people brought up among us to walk out on their lives and join the cult of murderous fanatics who call themselves Islamic State?

Read more...

No More Boys and Girls, BBC Two – baby steps lead to great leaps for children

Barney Harsent

Whether it’s the £400,000 that separates Mishal Husain from John Humphrys, or the 74 million miles between the metaphorical markers of Venus and Mars, there is a gulf between the genders. Despite legislation to enforce equality, the reality is that, right from the start, boys and girls are treated differently. Boys like trains, right?

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Blu-ray: Who Wants to Kill Jessie?

"Crazy comedy" was a recognised subgenre in post-war Czech...

BBC Proms: Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet review - super-sized...

There’s a Proms paradox that’s familiar to Early Music fans....

Gibby Haynes, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - ex-Butthole...

Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Cat Cohen / Lachlan Werner /...

Cat Cohen, Pleasance Courtyard ...

Album: Adrian Sherwood - The Collapse of Everything

UK dub maestro and producer, Adrian Sherwood is hardly what...

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Residents - American Composer...

George & James was originally released in March 1984. Stars & Hank Forever! emerged in October 1986. The two LPs were...

Frang, Romaniw, Liverman, LSO, Pappano, Edinburgh Internatio...

Right from the bracing brass fanfare that began this Sea Symphony, you know exactly where you were: right in the midst of the deck, with...