TV
Bodyguard, BBC One, episode 2 review - a wild ride to who knows whereTuesday, 28 August 2018
It was always a question of when. As in when would the hoity-toity Home Secretary and her poker-faced bodyguard move into the horizontal? “I’m not the queen, you know,” she said, by way of a hot come-on. “You can touch me.” As a mode of discourse,... Read more... |
Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage, Channnel 4 review - making meaning in deathFriday, 24 August 2018
Grayson Perry is at it again. The Turner Prize winner, Reith lecturer, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, curator, writer, British Museum trustee, CBE, RA – plus Britain's and the art world’s favourite transvestite – is trying to find sense... Read more... |
Disenchantment, Netflix review - Matt Groening show has promise after poor startFriday, 17 August 2018
It’s an event that only comes around once a generation: a new Matt Groening TV series. The Simpsons is rightly regarded as one of the greatest shows ever made. It changed the face of American television, and 10 years later was followed Futurama, a... Read more... |
On the Edge, Channel 4, review - fast and furious new dramasWednesday, 15 August 2018
Television drama is living through a golden age, yes, but one thing mainly absent from the vast choice available on terrestrial and streaming broadcasters alike is the short story. Short dramas used to be a regular fixture on television, when... Read more... |
h 100 Awards: Broadcast - TV's national treasuresMonday, 13 August 2018
In the ever-expanding field of broadcast, it’s easy to get lost in the deluge of product raining down from swaggering global providers who sometimes seem to have more money than critical acumen. How gratifying, then, that some of the best of British... Read more... |
Murder in Soho: Who Killed Freddie Mills?, BBC Four review - cold case solved?Thursday, 02 August 2018
They don’t make boxers like Freddie Mills any more. A granite lump of grinning charisma, he had a brow and jawline straight from a kids’ cartoon and, despite his humble origins and thuggish contours, a charmingly well-to-do voice. Mills was light... Read more... |
Age Before Beauty, BBC One review - mid-life makeover madnessWednesday, 01 August 2018
If you were looking for the antidote to Love Island, this might be just the job. Instead of airbrushed 20-something Instagram fanatics flaunting their “gym-honed” physiques in the Mediterranean sun, in Age Before Beauty (BBC One) writer Debbie... Read more... |
Hidden, Series Finale, BBC Four review - a whydunnit, not a whodunnitSunday, 29 July 2018
Some contend that this Snowdonia-set mystery was a Scandi hommage too far, a mere recycler of gloom-shrouded riffs familiar from the likes of The Bridge or The Killing. Well yes, there was that element to it, but if you stuck with it it grew into... Read more... |
The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, ITV review - the ludicrous in search of the preposterousThursday, 26 July 2018
Belatedly picking up from where series 2 of The Bletchley Circle left off in 2014, this comeback version has a go at transporting a couple of the original characters to the Californian West Coast, where they embroil themselves in the hunt for that... Read more... |
Who Is America?, Channel 4 review - sudden return of Sacha Baron CohenTuesday, 17 July 2018
Cunningly kept under wraps until the last moment, Sacha Baron Coen’s new show is a timely reminder of his gift for trampling the boundaries of good taste and decorum. But despite a certain amount of hyped-up pre-uproar, it doesn’t represent any... Read more... |
Unforgotten, Series 3, ITV review - death on the M1Monday, 16 July 2018
So it’s back to London’s Bishop Street police station for a third series of screenwriter Chris Lang’s cold case saga. The understated rapport of lead duo DI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DS Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) has become one of TV’s... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, BBC One review - this summer's watercooler dramaFriday, 13 July 2018
How well do you know the person you love? Are they someone completely different when you’re not around? This is the central question Eve Myles (main picture) has to answer in the BBC’s latest mystery drama. Faced with the sudden disappearance of her... Read more... |
