TV
Intruders, BBC TwoTuesday, 28 October 2014
"Baffling paranormal thriller" is your drive-thru soundbite to describe Intruders, but despite a lingering threat of genre-cliché, it holds your attention with a very capable cast and some stylish cinematography. The action is set in Washington... Read more... |
The Art of Gothic: Britain's Midnight Hour, BBC FourMonday, 27 October 2014
Andrew Graham-Dixon’s villainous alter ego got a second airing tonight in his exploration of 19th-century Britain’s love of all things Gothic. Last week we saw him hanging about in decaying graveyards, or appearing, wraithlike in a dank corner of a... Read more... |
Grayson Perry: Who Are You?, Channel 4Thursday, 23 October 2014
The night before he was locked up, Chris Huhne had that Grayson Perry round for tuna steaks. Who knew? Perry was embarking on a series of portraits about identity at a crossroads, and can there be a more public crisis of identity than a Cabinet... Read more... |
Storyville: Russia's Toughest Prison - The Condemned, BBC FourMonday, 20 October 2014
The initial challenge – and there should be no underestimating the scale of it – of Nick Read’s documentary Russia's Toughest Prison - The Condemned must have been getting into a location which the great majority of its inmates will never leave.... Read more... |
Schama on Rembrandt: Masterpieces of the Late Years, BBC TwoSunday, 19 October 2014
The chatty, loquacious, exuberant Simon Schama, whose seminal 1987 book on Holland in the 17th century, The Embarrassment of Riches, transformed the anglophone’s understanding of the Dutch Republic, describes himself as historian, writer, art critic... Read more... |
The Great Fire, ITVFriday, 17 October 2014
It takes some brass neck to look at one of the most destructive events in London’s history, which destroyed a chunk of the poorest part of the city and left an estimated 70,000 people homeless, and think that it wasn’t dramatic enough. But that must... Read more... |
The Knick, Sky AtlanticFriday, 17 October 2014
That there is something of the Sherlock Holmes about Dr John Thackery – the Shakespeare-quoting, opium and cocaine-addicted surgeon in this Steve Soderbergh-directed 10-part drama set in a New York hospital in 1900 – hasn’t gone unnoted. But... Read more... |
The Apprentice, Series 10, BBC OneWednesday, 15 October 2014
It's on later in the year than usual, but The Apprentice is back. Yippee! For the tenth series Lord Sugar and his producers have done a little tinkering with the format - enough to keep it fresh but without upsetting its dedicated fans, of... Read more... |
Gotham, Channel 5Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale and (coming soon) Ben Affleck have all had a go at playing the fully-formed Caped Crusader, though for some Adam West's ludicrously campy Sixties incarnation remains the score to beat. But... Read more... |
Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race / The Spaceman of Afghanistan, BBC FourTuesday, 14 October 2014
Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race (*****) arrived at a strange time. With its remarkable accumulation of Soviet archive material and interviews with key figures, including Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space, the programme must... Read more... |
Homeland, Series 4, Channel 4 / The Code, BBC FourMonday, 13 October 2014
It was tempting to assume that Homeland [****] had died along with Damian Lewis's Brody, last seen dangling gruesomely from a crane in Tehran at the end of series three, but this tense and uncomfortable season-opener suggested that all may not be... Read more... |
The Great British Bake Off 2014 Final, BBC OneThursday, 09 October 2014
It feels as though 2014 was the year in which the Twitter generation finally woke up and realised what it had done. For five years a quiet, unassuming baking competition had risen through the ranks to become the most polite BBC One ratings... Read more... |
