TV
The Pursuit of Love, BBC One review - extravagantly entertainingMonday, 10 May 2021
Nancy Mitford's 1945 literary sensation looks poised to be the TV talking point of the season, assuming the first episode of The Pursuit of Love sustains its utterly infectious energy through two hours still to come. Adapted and directed by the... Read more... |
BBC Young Musician 2020 Finale, BBC Four review - poise versus extraterrestrial ecstasyTuesday, 04 May 2021
“You have to be careful you’re not judging the piece,” cautioned a pearl-necklaced Nicholas Daniel, great oboist and winner of the 1980 BBC Young Musician (of the Year, as it then was). Yet while the work, Japanese composer and marimba virtuoso... Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series 6 Finale, BBC One review - crafty ending leaves wriggle room for a sequelMonday, 03 May 2021
WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERSHalf the fun of this series of Line of Duty has been the crescendo of conspiracy theories surrounding it, fuelled by the way creator Jed Mercurio has skilfully kept tapping into the LoD mythology built up over the... Read more... |
Intergalactic, Sky One review - lovely CGI, shame about the dramaSaturday, 01 May 2021
Welcome to Commonworld, in the year 2143. It’s been built above the ruins of the old world, and the opening sequence of Sky One’s new interstellar thriller showed us the crumbling remains of Tower Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral mouldering beneath... Read more... |
Viewpoint, ITV review - the perils of the peeping tom policeWednesday, 28 April 2021
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window has spawned its fair share of copycats, including Disturbia and Brian de Palma’s Femme Fatale. For ITV’s new five-night mystery Viewpoint, screenwriter Ed Whitmore (Silent Witness, Manhunt etc) puts... Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series 6, Episode 6, BBC One review - the pace accelerates for AC-12's final countdownMonday, 26 April 2021
As the finishing line begins to materialise through the haze of fear, suspicion and zany acronyms, the pace of this sixth series of Line of Duty (BBC One) has hotted up appreciably. In earlier episodes, there sometimes seemed to be a lack of... Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, RSC, BBC Four review - post-war poise colours a solid productionMonday, 26 April 2021
It has been a hard coming for this RSC Winter’s Tale. Erica Whyman’s production was cancelled by the virus days before its premiere last spring, with plans to stage it in the autumn frustrated by the second lockdown. This broadcast version,... Read more... |
Mare of Easttown, Sky Atlantic review - Kate Winslet shines in finely-drawn Pennsylvania mysteryTuesday, 20 April 2021
Read our review of the season finale hereDark family dramas set in unglamorous, unprosperous communities in the north-east of the USA have become a genre unto themselves. One thinks here of the work of writers such as Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by... Read more... |
Helen McCrory: 'If there's one interesting thing about acting it's trying to lose your ego'Monday, 19 April 2021
Each generation is given an actress who can do everything – be intimate with the camera but also coat a back wall in honey from 100 paces. There was Judi Dench, and then there was Imelda Staunton, both loved by all. Helen McCrory – who has died... Read more... |
Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty, BBC Two review - when crime paid handsomely for corrupt officersThursday, 15 April 2021
As Line of Duty aficionados debate the identity of H and wonder who DCI Joanne Davidson shares her DNA with, this new three-part series from BBC Two investigates the history of real-life corruption in the Metropolitan Police. Whereas the corrupt... Read more... |
Too Close, ITV review - capable cast struggles with unrewarding materialWednesday, 14 April 2021
What may have happened here is that an intriguing book has been turned into a not so great TV series. Too Close was Natalie Daniels’s well-received first novel, and she has adapted it for this ITV three-parter under her real name of Clara Salaman.... Read more... |
This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist, Netflix - the last word (for now)Thursday, 08 April 2021
It’s no surprise that 30 years on, the individuals most closely connected to the world’s biggest art heist are showing their age. Anne Hawley was a young woman just months into her directorship of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston when... Read more... |
