tv
Tutankhamun, ITVMonday, 17 October 2016
Freshly minted for ITV's Golden Age of Empire slot on Sunday nights, this new four-parter breezily splices together Edwardian derring-do toffery with a patina of Indiana Jones and (not least in the music) a miasma of Lawrence of Arabia. Our story began in 1905 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, as archaeologist Howard Carter sought to beat a swarm of international treasure-hunters to the holy grail of an undiscovered Pharaoh's tomb. Read more...
|
The Missing, Series 2, BBC OneThursday, 13 October 2016
It seems morbid, and perhaps even in dubious taste, to create a TV drama franchise focusing on the hideous fate of abducted children and the repercussions this has on their family and friends. Still, ratings are their own reward, and the first series of The Missing (a collaboration between the BBC and the US network Starz) was a critical and commercial success. Read more... |
Divorce, Sky AtlanticWednesday, 12 October 2016
Divorce opened on Sarah Jessica Parker inspecting the work of time in the mirror. Goodbye Carrie, hello Frances, upstate New Yorker, mother of two and wife to a man who demands equal time in the bathroom. “I was forced to take a shit in this coffee can in the garage,” hollered Robert through the door before barging in to reveal an abysmal moustache. Read more... |
Victoria, Series Finale, ITVMonday, 10 October 2016
One down, eight childbirths to go. The young Queen Victoria was delivered of her first child at the climax of this moreish opening series, and the bells of Windsor tolled for joy. ITV, debutant scriptwriter Daisy Goodwin and biographical consultant AN Wilson will be feeling parental pride that between them they have given birth to a healthy 10-pound whopper that looks very much like the natural heir to Downton. Read more... |
The Apprentice, Series 12, BBC OneFriday, 07 October 2016
Now back for a twelfth series, The Apprentice has recently burnished its reputation as a career launchpad. Not, of course, for the poor contestants, gurning and strutting their way to the judgement end of Lord Sugar’s finger, but for the pointy one himself. A certain D Trump, who presided over the American version, now has much grander ideas for his presiding. Read more... |
A World Without Down's Syndrome?, BBC TwoThursday, 06 October 2016
We’re all comfortable with the concept of actors presenting documentaries about endangered species. A famous name helps to bring an issue into the light. It was slightly different with A World Without Down’s Syndrome? Sally Phillips, the much-loved comic actress who plays sidekicks to Bridget Jones and Miranda Hart, has a son with Down’s Syndrome. Olly, as the opening sequence amply revealed, is a delightful boy at the heart of a loving family. Read more... |
Westworld, Sky AtlanticWednesday, 05 October 2016
Michael Crichton's 1973 movie Westworld became a paradigm of fears about technology running amok and turning violently against its human creators. HBO's new series, executive produced by JJ Abrams and written by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, looks as if it's aiming to explore the ghosts in the machinery, and take us to a Blade Runner-ish place where the boundary between the human and the man-made starts to dissolve. Read more... |
Louis Theroux: Savile, BBC TwoMonday, 03 October 2016
The procedure of introductions in Louis Theroux: Savile seemed somehow more elaborate than usual. Knocking on the door of those he was about to talk to for what might have been dubbed “Savile Revisited”, Louis Theroux was unusually careful about his greeting ritual: “I’m Louis”, “Can I come in?”, “Should I take off my shoes?” That last one was perhaps the fairest question here, because he was bringing all sorts of past horrors and dirty deceits into these clean and tidy homes. Read more... |
Oasis in Their Own Words, BBC iPlayerMonday, 03 October 2016
Trying to pip the release of Mat Whitecross’s documentary Supersonic to the post, this brief hack through the BBC’s archive throws together a galloping overview of Oasis’s rise and fall, narrated by their own interviews and quotes. Arguably Oasis built a career on the consistent entertainment value of their soundbites rather than the long-term quality of their songs, so this wasn’t exactly a hard search, nor does it throw up anything you hadn’t heard before. Read more... |
Crisis in Six Scenes, Amazon PrimeSaturday, 01 October 2016
At the age of 80 Woody Allen has made his first television series. It’s for Amazon, which would suggest he knows how to move with the times. That would be a false impression, because Crisis in Six Scenes is vintage Allen in the sense that it's a museum piece starring Allen himself as yet another of his neurotic hypochondriacs. The only novelty is that it comes in the shape of half a dozen bite-sized squibs, released weekly. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages...
...
Harvest review - blood, barley and adaptation
Lovers of a particular novel, when it’s adapted as a movie, often want book and movie to fit together as a hand in a glove. You want it to be...
Poor Clare, Orange Tree Theatre review - saints cajole us si...
What am I, a philosophical if not political Marxist whose hero is Antonio Gramsci, doing in Harvey Nichols buying Comme des Garçons...
That Bastard, Puccini!, Park Theatre review - inventive comi...
Before Luigi Illica wrote the libretti for Puccini’s Tosca and Madama Butterfly, he had joined the composer as the...
Hamlet, Buxton International Festival review - how to re-ima...
Ambroise Thomas’s version of Hamlet is the flagship production of this year’s Buxton International Festival and was always going to be a...
Friendship review - toxic buddy alert
The frenetic brand of humour that Tim Robinson brings to Friendship comes from a long lineage. There have...
Album: Slikback - Attrition
In the eternal now of the strobe-lit sweatbox, innovation functions in a different way to the rest of culture. Yes of course, the thrill of the...
Interview: Quinteto Astor Piazzolla on playing in London and...
“I still can’t believe that some pseudo-critics continue to accuse me of having murdered...
Sir Brian Clarke (1953-2025) - a personal tribute
Brian Clarke died on 1 July 2025, after a long illness. He was one of the most original British artists of our time – wide-ranging, ground-...
S/HE IS STILL HER/E - The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documen...
“I like guns. At school we had to fight with guns in the army cadets. I’m actually a first-class sniper. I could shoot people from half a mile...