TV
Showtrial, BBC One review - drama a cut above the restMonday, 15 November 2021
This latest offering from the ubiquitous World Productions (creators of Line of Duty, the farcical but strangely popular Vigil, Bodyguard etc etc) is a whodunnit, a howdunnit and a whydunnit, as it explores the mysterious disappearance and death of... Read more... |
Dalgliesh, Channel 5 review - doleful detective fails to fire on all cylindersSaturday, 13 November 2021
Treading in the footsteps of Roy Marsden and Martin Shaw, Bertie Carvel is a making a decent (albeit soporific) stab at embodying P D James’s introspective detective Adam Dalgliesh, though you have to wonder if he’s getting the help he needs from... Read more... |
Temple, Series 2, Sky Max review - more calamitous adventures of rogue surgeon Daniel MiltonFriday, 05 November 2021
It’s difficult to know how seriously to take Temple, Sky Max’s outlandish medical thriller about surgeon Dr Daniel Milton and his gothicky secret clinic, hidden under Temple tube station in London. In the first series, he miraculously managed to... Read more... |
Shetland, Series 6, BBC One review - too many cooks and too many crooksThursday, 04 November 2021
The population of the Shetland archipelago is only about 23,000 (similar to Broadstairs or Amersham), though judging by the adventures of DI Jimmy Perez, an extraordinarily large percentage of them harbour dark secrets or murderous tendencies. BBC... Read more... |
Invasion, Apple TV+ review - sci-fi epic or a pile of space junk?Tuesday, 26 October 2021
Conceived on a global scale to depict the enormity of an alien menace from outer space, Apple's new series Invasion has grand ambitions, but crash-lands like a pile of space junk. After a few hours of this, waiting for something to happen, you’ll be... Read more... |
All Creatures Great and Small, Series 2, Channel 5 review - familiar formula continues to satisfyMonday, 25 October 2021
Channel 5’ s decision to remake James Herriot’s much-loved Yorkshire vet stories was an inspired one, and this second series has effortlessly carried on the mood of gentle observation, nostalgia and slapstick comedy amid scintillating Yorkshire... Read more... |
Squid Game, Netflix review - murderous game show hits the ratings jackpotSaturday, 23 October 2021
This Korean-made show suddenly became Netflix’s all-time greatest hit, demonstrating once again the irresistible allure of a game show which ruthlessly massacres its contestants. Squid Game has some fairly obvious antecedents – for instance The... Read more... |
Ridley Road, BBC One review - Jewish community fights Nazi nightmare in 1960s LondonMonday, 18 October 2021
Neo-Nazis held a Trafalgar Square rally under the banner "Free Britain from Jewish Control" in the year of my birth; I had no idea until I watched Ridley Road. Most of us know about the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, but, until now, next to nothing... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Maigret - The Complete SeriesSunday, 03 October 2021
This weighty box set contains all 52 episodes of the BBC’s take on George Simenon's Maigret, four seasons of which were made and broadcast between 1960 and 1963. Given how much vintage BBC material has been wiped, that this series can now be watched... Read more... |
Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enoughWednesday, 22 September 2021
Born in 1840, Thomas Hardy lived a life of in-betweens. Modern yet traditional, the son of a builder who went on to become a famous novelist, he belonged both to Dorset and London. When he died, his ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey, but his... Read more... |
Schumacher, Netflix review - authorised version of the life of an F1 legendMonday, 13 September 2021
Michael Schumacher’s skiing accident in December 2013, which left the seven-times Formula One world champion with a severe brain injury, added a shocking postscript to one of the greatest stories in motor racing. Having survived a decades-long... Read more... |
The North Water, BBC Two review - a terrible voyage into the great beyondSaturday, 11 September 2021
It’s perhaps unfortunate that The North Water arrives on BBC Two only a few months after The Terror, since it’s impossible to avoid the parallels between them. They’re set only a few years apart (1859 for The North Water, 1845 for The Terror), both... Read more... |
