TV
DVD: Red ShiftThursday, 09 October 2014
Red Shift is a fascinating, if flawed, gem of ambitious and disturbing 1970s TV drama. It was adapted by Alan Garner (The Owl Service) from his own novel, and set in the south Cheshire landscape he grew up and lived in. Its director, John Mackenzie... Read more... |
Human Universe, BBC TwoTuesday, 07 October 2014
Brian Cox has a very beguiling way of expressing quiet wonder. He’s taken on the very largest of subjects in Human Universe, extending traditions of science and natural history broadcasting towards a wider study of how the human race has come to be... Read more... |
Bad Education, BBC ThreeTuesday, 07 October 2014
Two moments of physical comedy from British sitcoms regularly fill the polls of viewers’ favourites: Basil Fawlty thrashing his broken-down car with a branch, and Del Boy falling sideways through a just-opened pub bar. So what are the chances that... Read more... |
Cat Watch 2014: The New Horizon Experiment, BBC TwoTuesday, 07 October 2014
Cats have had a harder time adapting to humans than humans to cats, as this remarkable examination of contemporary feline habits points out. It is not always easy changing from wild animal to feline friend, as the programme put it. Nocturnal hunters... Read more... |
Genesis: Together and Apart, BBC TwoSunday, 05 October 2014
Despite a 47-year history which has taken them from pomp to pop and established them as a top-selling global institution, there's still a lingering sense that Genesis don't think they've been taken seriously enough. This was detectable in Phil... Read more... |
Peaky Blinders, Series 2, BBC TwoFriday, 03 October 2014
So we're off for another blast of between-the-wars ultraviolence with the Shelby gang from Birmingham, once again soundtracked by incongruous electric blues music. Time has moved on from the immediate aftermath of Great War hostilities and now we're... Read more... |
Blenheim Palace: Great War House, ITVFriday, 03 October 2014
Julian Fellowes, now the Conservative peer Lord Fellowes, left behind the fictional world of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey to give us this sumptuous tour of Blenheim Palace. Nor were its surroundings neglected as vista after vista showed us... Read more... |
The Paedophile Hunter, Channel 4Thursday, 02 October 2014
In a house in Nuneaton, a man calling himself Stinson Hunter lures paedophiles towards exposure, shame and possible prosecution. “We set the profile that is like the rope,” he explained. “And then if they choose to put that rope round their neck and... Read more... |
Marvellous, BBC TwoFriday, 26 September 2014
Marvellous reviews itself in its title. The story of Neil Baldwin starring Toby Jones was – and is, because you should catch it while you can on iPlayer – simply marvellous. As a dramatic character Neil Baldwin could be mistaken for... Read more... |
Jungle Atlantis, BBC TwoThursday, 25 September 2014
Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the biggest religious complex ever built. It is also one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring structures ever created, even now still a working temple with both Buddhist and Hindu connections. It was at the heart not... Read more... |
Scott & Bailey, Series 4, ITVThursday, 25 September 2014
When Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones) told the promotion board at the beginning of this series: “I’m not a liability, I’m a safe pair of hands”, we knew it would be a matter of sitting back and waiting to see in what manner she would heap disgrace upon... Read more... |
The Driver, BBC OneWednesday, 24 September 2014
A mental blur of airports, stations and dangly cardboard air freshener, minicab-driving has always seemed vulnerable to cliché. The problem facing Vince McKee, David Morrissey‘s driver protagonist in BBC One’s new three-parter, is that the rest of... Read more... |
