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Merle Haggard: Learning to Live with Myself

graeme Thomson Thursday, 07 April 2016

I interviewed Merle Haggard once and he’s a slippery old snake: dry, reserved and fiercely intelligent, with an ornery pride and an oft-used gift for riling people. I’m not sure we got to know him all that much better after Gandulf Hennig’s superb documentary Learning to Live with Myself, but it was a hell of a ride none the less.

Marcella, ITV

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 05 April 2016

Can't get enough Scandi Noir? Then why not make your own? With the aid of Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of The Bridge and installed here as screenwriter, ITV has.

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Undercover, BBC One

Jasper Rees Monday, 04 April 2016

The BBC Drama department can’t be faulted for reading the news. Last year London Spy riffed on the mystery of the corpse of the spy found in a suitcase in an MI6 safehouse. Now Undercover sinks its teeth into another juicy set of headlines about coppers who go into such deep cover they sire children with the activists they’re spying on.

Two Doors Down, BBC Two

Veronica Lee Saturday, 02 April 2016

With a slightly changed cast and set-up from its Hogmanay-themed pilot, screened on New Year’s Eve 2015, this was the first of a six-part sitcom (written by Simon Carlyle and Gregor Sharp) about the residents of a street in suburban Glasgow.

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Maigret, ITV

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 29 March 2016

If you were expecting Rowan Atkinson to say "bibble" or make those Mr Bean gurgling noises, you came to the wrong classic detective drama. To play George Simenon's timeless French detective in a story subtitled "Maigret Sets a Trap", a melancholy, interiorised Atkinson spent most of his time sitting and thinking. Despite the mumsy ministrations of Mme Maigret (alias Lucy Cohu), he relied mostly on his pipe for company as he struggled to unmask a serial killer of women in Montmartre.

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The Night Manager, Series Finale, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Monday, 28 March 2016

So at a stroke, The Night Manager has proved that appointment-to-view television is not yet dead in the age of Netflix, and that the BBC can do itself a favour in battling against the best American dramas if it can find a US production partner (AMC in this case).

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Blue Eyes, More4

Matthew Wright Saturday, 26 March 2016

Blue Eyes, the latest imported Swedish drama, has a lot of hype to live up to. After Borgen, Wallander, The Killing and the rest, Scandi noir is scarcely a novelty in itself. Yet Blue Eyes brings the ultra-topical subject of the far right and the immigration debate to the more familiar territory of murders in sun-starved pinescapes.

Line of Duty, Series 3, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Friday, 25 March 2016

Two years after its brilliant second series, which put Keeley Hawes's DI Lindsay Denton through the wringer with harrowing intensity, Jed Mercurio's bent-coppers drama is back. This time it's Daniel Mays, as Sgt Danny Waldron, sitting in the crosshairs of Ted Hastings and his AC12 anti-corruption team.

The A Word, BBC One

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 23 March 2016

It’s surprising how few dramas there are about the autistic spectrum. Dustin Hoffman’s turn in Rain Man (1988) misleadingly suggested that all sufferers are also geniuses. On British television Kid in the Corner (2001) was inspired by Tony Marchant’s experience as the parent of a child with Asperger’s (although the boy in the drama had ADHD).

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Brendan O'Carroll: My Family At War, BBC Two

Matthew Wright Thursday, 17 March 2016

It’s another military centenary, and another conundrum for broadcasters – how to tell a sombre story in an engaging way. The 1916 Dublin Easter Rising is an iconic event, but if we’re honest, not one many viewers will know in detail. The televisual warhorses for this kind of reminiscence – black-and-white portrait photos, sombre brass bands, and many talking heads atop camphor-scented tweed – are respectful but just a little bit dull.