TV
Dunblane: Our Story, BBC TwoThursday, 10 March 2016
For anyone living in the UK at the time, the Dunblane massacre on 13 March 1996 was an event so seared into their minds that they can remember exactly where they were when the shocking news came through.I was working on The Daily Telegraph's arts... Read more... |
The Prosecutors: Real Crime and Punishment, BBC FourWednesday, 09 March 2016
Murder is entertainment, which is why crime and the legal process are on television every night. But where drama and documentary focus on criminals and the police who catch them – and the barristers who cross-examine them in court – vanishingly... Read more... |
George Martin (1926-2016), record producer and 'fifth Beatle'Wednesday, 09 March 2016
For many pop-pickers, the presiding image of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee will be Brian May (he – yes, of course – of Queen) grinding out the national anthem on the roof of Buckingham Palace. For me, there was a much more meaningful moment later the... Read more... |
Doctor Thorne, ITVMonday, 07 March 2016
As the camera lingered lovingly over landscaped gardens and ravishing English countryside with a stately home parked squarely in the back of the frame, one could hardly avoid slipping into a Downtonesque reverie. Even more so when the assembled posh... Read more... |
Land of Hope and Glory, BBC TwoSaturday, 05 March 2016
The weekly magazine Country Life was founded in 1897, and is now perhaps improbably owned by Time Inc UK. Its popular image among people who do not necessarily ever look at it is defined by the famous (or infamous) girls in pearls: those portraits... Read more... |
Shetland, BBC OneFriday, 04 March 2016
It has been said of Shetland, the BBC crime drama based on the novels of Ann Cleeves, that it displays the somnambulant spirit of many of its Nordic contemporaries, while being caught in the traditional traps of homegrown detective dramas. The... Read more... |
Murder: The Third Voice, BBC TwoFriday, 04 March 2016
Three and a half years ago the writer Robert Jones and producer Kath Mattock came at the crime genre from an unusual angle. Instead of having characters in a murder case talk to one another, they all addressed the camera directly, each offering... Read more... |
Grantchester, Series 2, ITVThursday, 03 March 2016
Author James Runcie (son of the former Archbishop of Canterbury) hit on a cunning formula with his Grantchester Mysteries. Since the British are incurably addicted to maverick detectives, country house mysteries, clergymen who are part-time sleuths... Read more... |
Churchill's Secret, ITVMonday, 29 February 2016
When it comes to losing power, and powers failing, Michael Gambon has once again proved himself the ruler of choice. The actor who gave us his Lear when he was only just hitting his forties has had three decades of gurning and grouching to ready... Read more... |
Bolshoi Babylon, BBC FourMonday, 29 February 2016
Here’s a paradox. Just as the words “new Cold War” were beginning to form on the lips of political commentators in the West, two British film-makers, former TV newsmen no less, were being granted uncensored access to the Bolshoi Theatre – just 500... Read more... |
Eurovision: You Decide, BBC FourSaturday, 27 February 2016
It was all a far cry from the Leeds Piano Competition. Shunted on to BBC Four after the disappearance of BBC Three to online, Eurovision: You Decide nevertheless remained true to its new channel’s original remit. In today’s no-brow, morally... Read more... |
Who's the Boss?, BBC TwoWednesday, 24 February 2016
Who’s the Boss? occupies a square-eyed quadrant somewhere between Gogglebox and The Apprentice. If you like those, you’ll probably like this jaunty workplace experiment in which it’s not the boss who hires applicants for a new job, but the workforce... Read more... |
