TV
DVD: Dead HeadFriday, 19 April 2013
British film noir followed two courses in the 1980s. Whereas the American neo-noir revival of the 1970s prompted such contemporary crime thrillers as The Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa, and Stormy Monday, three superior BBC drama serials, though... Read more... |
Syria: Across the Lines, Channel 4Thursday, 18 April 2013
Covering both sides of a conflict is never easy. Apart from the physical dangers, warring parties are wary of journalists who've reported on and established ties with the enemy. Afghanistan showed this as clearly as anywhere, when the US forces were... Read more... |
Endeavour, Series 1, ITVMonday, 15 April 2013
Where will it end? Inspector Morse keeled over all the way back in the year 2000. Then the faintly unimaginable happened. Morse’s plodding sidekick Lewis got a promotion and started solving Oxford’s apparently inexhaustible supply of murders himself... Read more... |
10 Questions for Internet Broadcaster Jamal EdwardsMonday, 15 April 2013
In six and a half years of existence, SBTV has redefined what youth culture broadcasting can be. It began as nothing more than a YouTube channel where Jamal Edwards would put up videos he had filmed of his favourite grime MCs – but his natural... Read more... |
Inspector Morse's Last RoundSunday, 14 April 2013
Oxford. A glum afternoon in early spring, 2000. Tourists clogging the city’s arteries. On a terrace overlooking the river Cherwell, a tour guide finishes her spiel and shepherds a flock of pensioners on to the next destination. A lone squat figure... Read more... |
The Security Men, ITVSaturday, 13 April 2013
Does Caroline Aherne hate women? Surely not, but given that there have been plenty of painfully humourless so-called comedies over the years with this heavy a reliance on recurring jokes about older women’s breasts you could be forgiven for hoping... Read more... |
Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea, BBC OneFriday, 12 April 2013
The cup of tea is a national institution that brings comfort and good cheer to millions. So is Victoria Wood. Blend them in a pot and you’ve got a pleasing brew called Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. It might not have been so. When Wood last... Read more... |
Scott & Bailey, Series 3, ITVThursday, 11 April 2013
I don't know how accurate Scott & Bailey is as a portrayal of the daily experiences of policewomen, but screenwriter Sally Wainwright is enjoying herself hugely with the chaotic private lives of her protagonists. Quite a bit of this echoes back... Read more... |
Thatcher: We are an impersonatorTuesday, 09 April 2013
Mrs Thatcher famously presided over a huge rise in unemployment, but down the years she kept a large sorority of impersonators (and one male one) off the dole. She was lucky with her mimics, who included some of the great actresses of the age, and... Read more... |
Arne Dahl: The Blinded Man - Part One, BBC FourSunday, 07 April 2013
Swedish cop drama Arne Dahl snugly fits BBC Four’s Saturday-evening slot for continental European TV imports, but it also suggests that the well might be running dry. Based on the opening episode there’s not much intrinsically wrong with it, but it’... Read more... |
High Art of the Low Countries, BBC FourFriday, 05 April 2013
There was a time when the art of the Low Countries was considered to be very lowly and base indeed. It was the high art of Italy that counted if you were a person of culture and breeding. Not for you the carousing common folk of Jan Steen, or those... Read more... |
The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum, BBC TwoTuesday, 02 April 2013
Ten years ago Peter Nicholson made a BBC drama about Pompeii and its destruction. This fictionalised reconstruction, depicting made-up characters in togas saying made-up things, sounded cheesier than a pound of Brie, but was actually completely... Read more... |
