BBC Two
Inside No 9, BBC TwoThursday, 06 February 2014![]() The League of Gentlemen – performers Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and co-writer Jeremy Dyson – have been rather busy since they left Royston Vasey behind (temporarily we're told, as the foursome may set up shop for local people... Read more... |
Royal Cousins at War, BBC TwoThursday, 06 February 2014![]() World War One overkill - if you'll pardon the expression - is a clear and present danger as the centenary commemorations gather pace, but this investigation of the roles of the interlinked royal families of Europe in the onrush of hostilities was as... Read more... |
House of Fools, BBC TwoWednesday, 15 January 2014![]() Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's fans recall with huge affection their previous collaborations – among them Big Night Out and The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, two wonderfully anarchic shows. Now comes their first traditional, one-room (well two... Read more... |
Legacy, BBC TwoFriday, 29 November 2013![]() Did we really ever have it quite so bad? One-off drama Legacy, the latest addition to the BBC’s Cold War season, took us back to 1974, civil unrest, power-cuts and the three-day-week. And in Spyland, that nether world of lost certainties and... Read more... |
An Adventure in Space and Time, BBC TwoFriday, 22 November 2013![]() Of all the ways in which the BBC has chosen to mark the 50th anniversary of one of its most celebrated exports, surely this (other than the obvious) was the most anticipated: a feature-length retelling of the origin story of Doctor Who, written and... Read more... |
The Science of Doctor Who, BBC TwoFriday, 15 November 2013![]() Today’s special preview of the impending 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who finally filled in some of what happened in the gap between Paul McGann’s 1996 made-for-TV movie and the show’s 2005 televisual regeneration (Big Finish audios... Read more... |
The Wipers Times, BBC TwoThursday, 12 September 2013![]() The last time we saw soldiers going over the top at the Somme with comic baggage attached was the tragic finale of Blackadder. It’s the inevitable comparison that The Wipers Times writers Ian Hislop and Nick Newman were going to face, and though... Read more... |
Martin Luther King and the March on Washington, BBC Two/MLK: The Assassination Tapes, BBC FourWednesday, 28 August 2013![]() It was only today I learned that, for copyright reasons, it is impossible to use Martin Luther King’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech in its entirety without paying a hefty licensing fee to his estate. That knowledge made it easier to understand why... Read more... |
The Great British Bake Off 2013, BBC TwoWednesday, 21 August 2013![]() Amongst my friends, I am known as an admirer of the baked good in just about all of its forms: the loaf, the sponge, the ubiquitous cupcake. And yet something about The Great British Bake Off has always put me off. The relentless commercialisation... Read more... |
Top of the Lake, Series Finale, BBC TwoSunday, 18 August 2013![]() “Everything you think you are, you’re not,” pronounced Holly Hunter’s inscrutable GJ in the final episode of the chilly Top of the Lake. Certainties crumbled as the series progressed, with Elisabeth Moss’s Robin Griffin discovering that almost... Read more... |
Dragons' Den, Series 11, BBC TwoMonday, 12 August 2013![]() Two new dragons have joined the Dragons’ Den, and it may be even scarier for them than it is for the entrepreneurs. How can pale, uppercrust, celebrity hotel designer Kelly Hoppen possibly match up to our ‘ilary, the trucking queen with the Buzz... Read more... |
Horizon: What Makes Us Human?, BBC TwoThursday, 04 July 2013![]() Teamwork, as the song once said, makes the dream work. Homo sapiens knows this, if not quite by nature, then at least by nurture. Turns out that there are some chimpanzees in Leipzig which are all over the team thing too. Offered the chance to pull... Read more... |
