tv
Shirley, BBC TwoFriday, 30 September 2011
A couple of series ago Alan Yentob took himself off to Monte Carlo to grill Dame Shirley Bassey for Imagine about her life in showbiz. Kissinger got more out of Gromyko at the height of the Cold War. (The Soviet foreign minister’s nickname was Nyet.) The BBC have had another stab at showing what makes the girl from Tiger Bay tick, this time in the form of drama, where there is licence to make things up. Read more...
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Time Shift: Dear Censor, BBC FourFriday, 30 September 2011
I hadn't thought this one through very well. As someone who was put off horror films by a window crashing onto a hand in one of the Amityville movies at least two decades ago, watching Time Shift: Dear Censor last night, which promised to show some of cinema's most notorious scenes, was probably unwise. Happily, standards of gore, violence and sex have dropped so fast in the past 20 years that what was censorable in 1991 is PG now. Read more... |
Rex Appeal, BBC FourThursday, 29 September 2011
Dinosaurs. Even just seeing that word takes me back to a letter my seven-year-old self wrote to Blue Peter humbly begging them for “More dinosaws pleez”. Back then, a sighting of these lumbering beasts on TV or at the movies was a rare and thrilling thing. But ever since Jurassic Park (and the fact they can be conjured up with relative CGI ease) we’ve been overrun by the things. Read more... |
Cinema Verite, Sky AtlanticWednesday, 28 September 2011
The 1973 series An American Family is often referred to as television's first reality show, though comparing it to Big Brother or the Kardashians would be like slotting Ingmar Bergman alongside the CBeebies. Its 12 episodes were boiled down from 300-odd hours of observational footage of the Loud family, of Santa Barbara, California, at work, rest and play. Read more... |
This is Jinsy, Sky AtlanticTuesday, 27 September 2011
Excepting the cows, Guernsey’s most famous resident was probably Oliver Reed, who lived there as a tax exile. The barmy This is Jinsy, the creation of Guernsey natives Chris Bran and Justin Chubb, probably isn’t a faithful depiction of the island’s life, but it’s got to be its most notable cultural export. If not that, then its most curious. Read more... |
Fry's Planet Word, BBC TwoMonday, 26 September 2011
Language is, the sages tell us, intrinsic to being human. Or to what humans call “being human”, anyway. And yet, notwithstanding the 70-odd muscles and half a billion brain cells deployed every time we open our mouths, we hardly give the matter a second thought. Read more... |
Educating Essex, Channel 4Friday, 23 September 2011
Education, education, education. Have we ever worried so much about how, and what, and why, and where our children are being taught? We’re so desperate, it seems, for some guidance on the matter that we barely raise an eyebrow about turning their trials and tribulations into fodder for reality television. Never mind the dubious ethics, we might learn something. Read more... |
Fresh Meat, Channel 4Thursday, 22 September 2011
How could you not immediately warm to a new comedy series that has almost as its first line, “Maybe you should tuck your cock away while I make us a nice cup of tea”? Read more... |
The Great British Bake Off, BBC TwoWednesday, 21 September 2011
Baking and competition are two of my favourite things, thus when BBC Two unveiled The Great British Bake Off last year, it seemed my gluttonous, pugnacious prayers had been fulfilled. Amateurs had every possible skill challenged by the good-cop-bad-cop combination of master bakers Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, leavened (or leadened) by ever-quirky presenters Mel and Sue. (I will avoid all recipe-related puns henceforth, I promise.) Read more... |
Spooks, Series 10, BBC OneMonday, 19 September 2011
Am I being paranoid, or are there spies everywhere these days? A quick squiz at the telly guide recently, and you'd have been forgiven for thinking that everyone in London is either employed in the security services or in making films about them. According to last night's re-opening of the Spooks case-file, anyway, there are plenty around the red-brick side-streets of Hammersmith. Read more... |
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