wed 10/09/2025

tv

Shetland, Series 5, BBC One review - uneven start to new season

Adam Sweeting

And so back to the windswept landscapes of the Shetland archipelago, where stoical DI Jimmy Perez is still keeping the bad guys at bay while continuing to cope with life as an ageing widower. You do wonder, though, how he sustains his commitment to the job in a territory offering such a restricted career ladder.

Read more...

Endeavour, Series 6, ITV review - reassuringly accomplished return of the brainy copper

Adam Sweeting

The end of series five of Endeavour found PC George Fancy shot dead, Cowley police station closed and the old crew dispersed. With Led Zeppelin on the soundtrack (it’s 1969), the sixth series opened minus WPC Trewlove, but with Fred Thursday demoted and shunted off to Castle Gate police station.

Read more...

David Bowie: Finding Fame, BBC Two review - the most touching instalment of Francis Whately's trilogy

howard Male

Even the most ardent Bowie fan might dismissively sum up their idol's pre-fame years with just these three words: The Laughing Gnome.

Read more...

Safe Harbour, Series Finale, BBC Four review - too much message, not enough drama

Adam Sweeting

Picture this. You’re sailing in the Timor Sea with family and friends on your luxurious yacht, hoiking the occasional plump fish out of the ocean to provide a ready meal washed down with Aussie plonk, when you suddenly chance across a decrepit, broken-down fishing boat crammed with mostly Iraqi refugees. What do you do?

Read more...

Das Boot, Sky Atlantic review - menacing drama on land and sea

Adam Sweeting

Wolfgang Petersen’s film Das Boot is now nearly 40 years old, but in this new TV sequel time has moved forward a mere nine months from the original story, into the autumn of 1942.

Read more...

Don McCullin: Looking for England, BBC Four review - a hard look at home

Marina Vaizey

A picture is worth more than a thousand words, never more so than with the photographs of Don McCullin. The octogenarian photographer’s black-and-white imagery made the Sunday Times colour supplement the talk of international media in the 1970s.

Read more...

Les Misérables, BBC One, series finale review - more moving than revealing

Jasper Rees

It took the best part of six episodes, but we got there in the end: the reason David Oyelowo accepted the confusingly underwritten part of Inspector Javert in BBC One’s adaptation of Les Misérables was finally revealed.

Read more...

Camping, Sky Atlantic, review - Lena Dunham's tentative British export

Jasper Rees

When British sitcoms head west anything can happen. For every success – The Office had a happy second life with Steve Carell – there are half a dozen others that got lost in translation, including Coupling, Getting On, Gavin and Stacey, The It Crowd and The Vicar of Dibley.

Read more...

The Last Survivors, BBC Two review - living on

Marina Vaizey

When they were children the interviewees in this film – the last survivors – were taken away in incomprehensible circumstances, on their way to be murdered for who they were, in Germany and places further east.

Read more...

Imagine... James Graham, BBC One review - deft analysis of a working life

Rachel Halliburton

How does an unassuming 36-year-old with a terrifyingly sensible haircut and a mildly flamboyant taste in jumpers become the political playwright par excellence of his generation?

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Lammermuir Festival 2025 review - music with soul from the h...

One piece that you’re unlikely to hear at the Lammermuir Festival is Lucia di Lammermoor. As co-director James Waters explained during a...

Album: Yasmine Hamdan - I Remember I Forget بنسى وبتذكر

A lot is going on during Yasmine Hamdan’s third solo album. Despite all ten songs of I Remember I Forget بنسى وبتذكر drawing from the...

BBC Proms: Steinbacher, RPO, Petrenko / Sternath, BBCSO, Ora...

My final visit to the Proms for this year was a Sunday double-...

Honey Don’t! review - film noir in the bright sun

The Coen brothers’ output has been so broad-ranging, and the duo so self-deprecating, that critics have long had difficulty getting their arms...

Blu-ray: The Sweeney - Series One

You’ll have absorbed key strands of The Sweeney‘s DNA even if you’ve never watched an episode, ITV’s groundbreaking police drama having...

theartsdesk on Vinyl 92: Marianne Faithful, Crayola Lectern,...

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Black Lips Season of the Peach (Fire)

...

Blondshell, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - woozy roc...

There is such nonchalance with Sabrina Teitelbaum that even her appeals to the crowd appeared laid-back. At points during her set the Los Angeles...

Ganavya, Barbican review - low-key spirituality

At the start or her show, the white-robed singer Ganavya does something unusual: while other performers usually warm their audience up before...

Music Reissues Weekly: Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Ye...

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years at 45 RPM is a triple album marking the 50th anniversary of the first release...