TV
Walliams & Friend, BBC OneSaturday, 26 November 2016
The sketch format goes in and out of favour. It was huge in the 1970s, crawled under a rock when alternative comedians found other means of expression, and was reinvigorated 20 years ago by genuinely inventive shows like Big Train and The Fast Show... Read more... |
Young, Gifted and Classical: The Making of a Maestro, BBC FourMonday, 21 November 2016
This is a documentary about a minority in a minority, a riff on young, gifted and black. And how better to attract both practitioners and audiences to classical music than by encouraging diversity? The totally startling statistic was that in the UK... Read more... |
The Grand Tour, Amazon PrimeSaturday, 19 November 2016
The Jeremy Clarkson trio must have been vastly amused by the disastrous progress of the Chris Evans version of Top Gear, which staggered across our screens in the summer and prompted the new host to fall on his sword, but they shouldn't be resting... Read more... |
Jack Taylor, C5Friday, 18 November 2016
For those new to this Irish crime series, a brief catch-up. Jack Taylor (played by Iain Glen at his world-weary best) is a hard-drinking maverick loner ex-cop who left the Garda Siochána (Ireland's police force) after hitting a politician to... Read more... |
NW, BBC TwoTuesday, 15 November 2016
“Why is everyone from your school a criminal crackhead?” “Why is everyone from yours a Tory minister?” These questions lie at the heart of Zadie Smith’s NW. Keisha (the wonderful Nikki Amuka-Bird), aka Natalie, is married to wealthy Frank (Jake... Read more... |
My Mother and Other Strangers, BBC OneMonday, 14 November 2016
This new wartime drama launched on Remembrance Sunday is a curio. The setting of My Mother and Other Strangers is rural Northern Ireland in 1943, where it’s green and wet and a long way from the conflict. Into the midst of the fictional Moybeg on... Read more... |
Deep Water, BBC FourSunday, 13 November 2016
Australian drama has come on in leaps and bounds since Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, The Sullivans and Prisoner: Cell Block H. While Neighbours and Home and Away continue to play in the sand, other shows – The Secret Life of Us, The Dr Blake Mysteries... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Robert VaughnSaturday, 12 November 2016
New York-born actor Robert Vaughn, who has died at the age of 83, achieved massive popular success when he starred as the sleek secret agent Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which ran for four seasons from 1964 to 1968 and exploited the... Read more... |
Close to the Enemy, BBC Two / Paranoid, Series Finale, ITVFriday, 11 November 2016
We last encountered Stephen Poliakoff on TV in 2013's Dancing on the Edge, which provoked mixed reactions (not least on theartsdesk). That was the story of a black jazz band in 1930s London, who played gigs at swanky hotels. Close to the Enemy (★)... Read more... |
Damilola: Our Loved Boy, BBC OneTuesday, 08 November 2016
The most poignant moment in Damilola: Our Loved Boy came when Richard Taylor visited the scene where his 10-year-old child was killed. “Is this where my son died?” he cried, horrified at the thought that his beautiful boy's life ended in a dirty... Read more... |
Poldark, Series 2 Finale / Planet Earth II, BBC OneMonday, 07 November 2016
So, a rough tally. We’ve had a trial, a near suicide, a punch-up, death by drowning, a near bankruptcy, a tin rush, another punch-up, a baby, a probable rape, a riot, another baby, and another one on the way, possibly a product of that probable rape... Read more... |
The Crown, NetflixSaturday, 05 November 2016
Peter Morgan can't get enough of Her Majesty. Ten years ago he wrote The Queen (with Helen Mirren starring), in 2013 he brought us the stage play The Audience (Dame Helen, again), and now he's written all 10 episodes of this first series of Netflix'... Read more... |
