TV
Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, Apple TV+ review - sprawling account of the singer's rise to superstardomSunday, 28 February 2021
The Billie Eilish story is a paradigm of pop music and marketing, 2020s-style. Eilish’s instinctive talent became evident when she was barely into her teens, and she flourished with the support of a close-knit and musical family. But the club-gigs-... Read more... |
Stand Up and Deliver, Channel 4 review - how to make a comicFriday, 26 February 2021
Everyone (well, almost everyone) can tell a joke. But being a comic – holding an audience rapt, getting a roomful of strangers to like you and laugh at your material – takes real talent. So this is an interesting wheeze, in aid of Stand Up to Cancer... Read more... |
Bloodlands, BBC One review - ghosts of the Troubles return to poison the presentMonday, 22 February 2021
Belfast-based thriller Bloodlands comes from the pen of first-time TV writer Chris Brandon, though he may find some of his thunder being stolen by the show’s producer, Line of Duty supremo Jed Mercurio. Line of Duty is filmed in Belfast too, though... Read more... |
Whirlybird: Live Above LA - Storyville, BBC Four review - rise and fall of the first couple of airborne TV newsTuesday, 16 February 2021
A story of obsession, media madness and the price of fame, as well as a filmic incarnation of Jim Morrison’s “bloody red sun of fantastic LA”, Matt Yoka’s film Whirlybird is a strange and fascinating hybrid. Subtly textured by Ty Segall’s quizzical... Read more... |
ZeroZeroZero, Sky Atlantic review - how drug money makes the world go roundFriday, 05 February 2021
Based on a book by Roberto Saviano, author of the Neapolitan gang saga Gomorrah, ZeroZeroZero (Sky Atlantic) is an account of the international drugs trade and the way its tentacles wrap themselves around the entrails of societies at all levels. It’... Read more... |
The Drowning, Channel 5 review - unbelievableWednesday, 03 February 2021
The theme of a parent haunted by the loss of a child can have powerful dramatic potential, and this is the premise behind The Drowning, Channel 5’s new four-night mystery. Nine years earlier, Jodie and Frank’s four-year-old son Tom vanished during a... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Isabella Pappas on how 'Finding Alice' is a blueprint for bereavementMonday, 01 February 2021
Isabella Pappas was nominated for an Olivier Award seven years ago – before she’d even started secondary school. The 18-year-old now stars in ITV’s new comedy-drama about grief, Finding Alice, opposite Keeley Hawes, Joanna Lumley, and Nigel Havers.... Read more... |
Spiral, Series 8 Finale, BBC Four review - justice is done in stormy climactic episodesSunday, 31 January 2021
If this had to be the end of Spiral, the final episodes of Series 8 (BBC Four) at least ensured that justice was done. We saw evidence that on occasion lawyers may be human after all, and there was even the somewhat disorientating semblance of a... Read more... |
Marcella, Series 3, ITV review - Anna Friel returns as the defective detectiveWednesday, 27 January 2021
Anna Friel’s unstable detective Marcella Backland has been on the brink of existential burn-out ever since her first appearance on ITV in 2016, but it seems audiences have a perverse desire to see what psychological black holes she might plummet... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Polly Walker on 'Bridgerton' and the new breed of period dramaMonday, 25 January 2021
Polly Walker's character in Netflix's sumptuous new Regency romance, Bridgerton, could've easily been little more than a villainous Mrs Bennet. We meet Lady Featherington as she's forcing one of her daughters into a tiny corset, muttering about how... Read more... |
It's a Sin, Channel 4 review - poignant, funny, vibrant masterpieceSunday, 24 January 2021
Finally, it seems, the time is right for a major British TV drama about how the AIDS crisis hit the early 1980s London gay scene. We’ve come a long way even since the audacious launch of Russell T Davies’s triumphant Queer As Folk, also on Channel 4... Read more... |
Call My Agent!, Series 4, Netflix review - the final bow for the Parisian showbiz saga?Friday, 22 January 2021
Sad to report, this fourth series of Call My Agent! (Netflix) will be the final outing for this caustically addictive saga of actors and their agents. The show’s unique trademark has been its success in attracting an impressive roster of A-list... Read more... |
