TV
Versailles, BBC TwoThursday, 09 June 2016
In the middle of the last century the worst thing that could be said about a working-class housewife was that she had “run off with a black man”. Well, the Queen of France, no better than she ought to be, has had it off with a black man (in fact her... Read more... |
Cameron and Farage: Live, ITVWednesday, 08 June 2016
Never in the field of human voting has so much been demanded of so many by so few... Triggered by a moment of prime ministerial hubris and made reality by a Tory leadership bid and the relentless UKIP catcalls, the referendum is putting control of... Read more... |
Handmade: By Royal Appointment, BBC FourTuesday, 07 June 2016
The accelerating glorification, in the West at least, of the handmade is a fascinating phenomenon, perhaps a subliminal fight back against overwhelming industrialisation and the age of the robots. And perhaps nowhere is the admiration and commercial... Read more... |
Wallander, Series 4 Finale, BBC One / Dicte: Crime Reporter, More4Monday, 06 June 2016
This concluding mini-series starring the sorrowful Swede began with a bizarre misfire set in South Africa, but redeemed itself with a finale imbued with persuasively Wallander-ish characteristics. The light was grey, flat and menacing. Landscape... Read more... |
Ben Building: Mussolini, Monuments and Modernism, BBC FourThursday, 02 June 2016
One can only speculate about the mysterious allure which dictators seem to hold for Jonathan Meades, and perhaps one should keep one's conclusions to oneself to avoid reprisals. Having previously turned his perverse eye and tumultuous vocabulary on... Read more... |
Revolution and Romance: Musical Masters of the 19th Century, BBC FourWednesday, 01 June 2016
Suzy Klein, writer and presenter of this three-episode series, is a trained musician and a ubiquitous presence in cultural programmes across a wide spectrum. This opening film, "We Can Be Heroes", was an engagingly populist piece about a complicated... Read more... |
The wisdom and wit of Carla LaneWednesday, 01 June 2016
Carla Lane, who has died at the age of 87, was the first from Liverpool. Before Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell, long before Jimmy McGovern, hers was the loudest Liverpudlian voice on television portraying ordinary working people's lives. From The... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, BBC OneTuesday, 31 May 2016
Theseus was a tablet-carrying dictator, Lysander a sweet-faced asthmatic, and Peter Quince rechristened Mistress Quince in the agreeably unexpected presence of Elaine Paige: those were among the innovations of Russell T Davies's larky reworking of... Read more... |
Top Gear, BBC TwoMonday, 30 May 2016
Few TV series manage such copious, prominent and skilful trails. There was a “controversy” about doing a handbrake turn round the Cenotaph. There have been endless rumours about new presenter Chris Evans’s relationship with co-star Matt LeBlanc,... Read more... |
Going Going Gone, BBC FourThursday, 26 May 2016
In Going Going Gone Nick Broomfield was fighting to get access all over again – but it wasn’t exactly the same kind of challenge he’d faced with Sarah Palin or some of his previous targets. Doors were closed, but the keepers of the keys here were... Read more... |
Rovers, Sky1Wednesday, 25 May 2016
Football seeps into every cranny of British culture, but it's hard to name a great comedy or drama about the game of two halves. The history of fictionalised football is mainly a catalogue of failure. The liveliest portraits of the game have come at... Read more... |
Wallander, Series 4, BBC OneMonday, 23 May 2016
Having enjoyed so many Scandinavian dramas created in their own homelands, it feels like taking a step backwards to return (for its final series) to Kenneth Branagh's Anglo-Wallander. Far worse was that this first of a three-part series, The White... Read more... |
