TV
Years and Years, Series Finale, BBC One review - soggy ending fails to inspireWednesday, 19 June 2019
As Russell T Davies’s doomsday odyssey reached its endgame on BBC One, feisty grandma Muriel (played by indestructible Anne Reid) got to deliver the moral of the story. With the Lyons clan gathered round that now-familiar dining table, she spelt it... Read more... |
Ackley Bridge, Series 3, Channel 4 review - we gotta get out of this placeWednesday, 19 June 2019
In the Yorkshire town of Ackley Bridge, education is like war conducted by other means. As series three of the drama begins on Channel 4, we see that everything has changed at Ackley Bridge school since Valley Trust took it over. Most of the staff... Read more... |
Thatcher: A Very British Revolution, Finale, BBC Two review - a heartbreaking account of her declineTuesday, 18 June 2019
The surprisingly touching conclusion to BBC Two’s five-part chronicle of the Thatcher years was a masterpiece of contemporary history. Congratulations to producer Alice Fraser, director Pamela Gordon, and composer Alexandra Harwood for very fitting... Read more... |
Franco Zeffirelli: 'I had this feeling that I was special'Saturday, 15 June 2019
"I am amazed to be still alive. Two hours of medieval torment.” Franco Zeffirelli - who has died at the age of 96 - had spent the day having a lumbar injection to treat a sciatic nerve. You could hear the bafflement in his heavily accented English.... Read more... |
Wild Bill, Episode 1, ITV review - an American in LincolnshireWednesday, 12 June 2019
All is not well in Boston, Lincolnshire. Unemployment, immigration concerns, Brexit frustration, and the highest murder rate in the country. How do you solve the problems of contemporary Britain? Send in an American. And not just that. Bill Hixon (... Read more... |
What's My Name: Muhammad Ali, Sky Atlantic review - why they called him The GreatestWednesday, 12 June 2019
As Anthony Joshua’s shock defeat by the unfancied Andy Ruiz Jr suggests, heavyweight boxers ain’t what they used to be. Antoine Fuqua’s sprawling HBO documentary (this was the first of two parts) bangs the point home with its vivid examination of... Read more... |
Years and Years, Episode 5, BBC One review - darker and darkerWednesday, 12 June 2019
Does every generation suffer its own form of doomsday paranoia? In Stephen Poliakoff’s BBC Two drama Summer of Rockets, it’s the late 1950s and everybody’s convinced they’re about to perish in a nuclear holocaust. In this penultimate episode of... Read more... |
Big Little Lies, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - supercharged start for new seasonTuesday, 11 June 2019
When the first series of Sky Atlantic's Big Little Lies paraded across our screens in 2017, its shocking but satisfying ending looked like the perfect conclusion to a superb self-contained drama. Doh! Of course it wasn’t – it was just the first... Read more... |
Bob Dylan Special - Rolling Thunder Revue, NetflixTuesday, 11 June 2019
Tomorrow, Martin Scorsese delivers, via Netflix, two hours and 22 minutes of screen time devoted to Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, following on from the release last week of the latest Bootleg Series boxed set, 14 CDs covering five full concerts... Read more... |
Killing Eve, Series 2, BBC One review - the award-winning show returnsSunday, 09 June 2019
At the end of the first series, MI6 spy Eve (Sandra Oh) stabs psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) in the stomach as they’re together on the bed in Villanelle’s gorgeous Paris flat ("chic as shit" according to Eve). “I really liked you! It... Read more... |
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, Netflix, review - sex and dope soap is back in San FranciscoFriday, 07 June 2019
It helps to be of a certain vintage to appreciate the first impact of Tales of the City. Armistead Maupin’s column, begun in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1978 as a frank and joyous portrayal of gay culture, became a series of half a dozen cult... Read more... |
The Virtues, Episode 4, Channel 4 review - a bitter redemptionWednesday, 05 June 2019
Shane Meadows has said that he always wanted to make a film where people didn’t talk. It’s homage to the European cinema he loves, with its preference for atmosphere over action, ambiguity over resolution, but it is also a way to confront an... Read more... |
