TV
The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses - Richard III, BBC TwoSunday, 22 May 2016
Benedict Cumberbatch, it turns out, was born to play the blasted, blighted Richard III, as one might expect from an actor whose long-term apprenticeship to both classical theatre and television converged to bring the BBC's Hollow Crown series to a... Read more... |
Antonia Bird: 'I get lumped together with Ken Loach'Sunday, 22 May 2016
Antonia Bird died in 2013 at the age of 62. The last television drama with her name on it was the first series of The Village, but the career which is celebrated in the BBC Four documentary Antonia Bird: From EastEnders to Hollywood were from a... Read more... |
Love, Nina, BBC OneSaturday, 21 May 2016
It’s not hard to see what attracted Nick Hornby to Nina Stibbe’s surprise bestseller: Love, Nina (BBC1) is about two boys who are mad about football. Set in the halcyon days of 1982 – no internet, no mobile phones – it fictionalises the experiences... Read more... |
Grayson Perry: All Man, Channel 4Friday, 20 May 2016
You are a massive cock. A gigantic tool. You are a monumental prick. Grayson Perry did not mince his message as he concluded his portrait of modern maleness with a tour of the City of London. At the end of each programme he has presented the... Read more... |
Marcella, Series Finale, ITVWednesday, 18 May 2016
In the end, the swirling fragments of Marcella all fell together quite nicely, though Anna Friel's portrayal of Marcella Backland never made you think you were watching a real detective in action. Afflicted with memory loss, blackouts and... Read more... |
David Attenborough's Zoo Quest in Colour, BBC FourWednesday, 18 May 2016
What larks! The first run of Zoo Quest – itself the first of the wildlife programmes – started 62 years ago, in 1954. It was thought it had all been filmed in black and white, on small 16mm cameras, but in fact a condition imposed by the BBC was to... Read more... |
Undercover, Series Finale, BBC OneMonday, 16 May 2016
In its final episode Undercover tied up a lot of loose ends and introduced a number of new ones. The biggest loose end to remain unaddressed was pretty big. Nick Johnson was the alias of a policeman who in 1996 went undercover to spy on black... Read more... |
Mum, BBC TwoSaturday, 14 May 2016
The comedy of widowhood is the brave territory of Mum. Lesley Manville plays Cathy, whom we meet on the day she is burying her husband Dave – although not literally doing it herself, as has to be explained to the nice but dim new girlfriend of her... Read more... |
Billions, Sky AtlanticFriday, 13 May 2016
The pre-title sequence – in which a middle-aged man without any trousers lies trussed up on the floor – immediately tells us that we are not to take Billions too seriously. A woman in thigh-high leather boots with killer heels towers over him.... Read more... |
Cunk on Shakespeare, BBC TwoThursday, 12 May 2016
Parodic ignoramus Philomena Cunk has been flaunting her narrow cultural horizons on Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe for many years, and more recently extended her shallow range to such weighty issues as feminism and the financial crisis in her Moments... Read more... |
Upstart Crow, BBC TwoTuesday, 10 May 2016
Time was when the words “a new sitcom from Ben Elton” wouldn't make anyone's heart quicken with anticipation. I think it's fair to say that after the glorious Blackadder (1983-89), he struggled to write anything so brilliantly, giddily funny, but... Read more... |
The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses - Henry VI Part 1, BBC TwoSunday, 08 May 2016
Allegedly one of the worst plays Shakespeare wrote (which he may have done in cahoots with Thomas Nashe), the first part of Henry VI emerged victorious from this TV adaptation. Whereas one might think twice about chopping and rejigging Hamlet or... Read more... |
