sat 06/09/2025

tv

Rules of the Game, BBC One review - feminist workplace drama topples into farce

Adam Sweeting

The BBC have billed this as a “four-part thriller about sexual politics in the modern workplace”, which is slightly misleading because it looks as though it’s taking place in about 1983.

Read more...

Witch Hunt, All 4 review - dark deeds and dirty money

Adam Sweeting

When business and politics collide, the result may very well be corruption. Such is the case in this taut, streamlined thriller from Norway, one of many gems from the Walter Presents stable.

Read more...

The Apprentice, Series 16, BBC One review - will they never learn?

Veronica Lee

“Will they never learn?” people must have been screaming as they watched the opening episode of the 16th series of The Apprentice – I certainly was. After all these years, the hopefuls vying to take Lord Sugar's £250,000 to invest in their business idea seem blissfully unaware of how daft they look with their strutting boasts.

Read more...

The Tourist, BBC One review - gripping Outback thriller from the Williams brothers

Adam Sweeting

This latest outing from the astonishingly prolific Jack and Harry Williams (The Missing, Baptiste, The Widow, Strangers etc) gives itself a huge leg-up by exploiting the epic lonely spaces of the Australian Outback.

Read more...

Best of 2021: TV

theartsdesk

There's so much stuff on TV, in all its many multi-streaming hats, that I somehow haven't got around to watching Succession. Apparently it's the best TV show ever made.

Oh well, there's bound to be another one along in a minute. Theartsdesk's eagle-eyed reviewers have found plenty to amuse themseves with elsewhere during 2021, and we parade our particular predilections below. Adam Sweeting

Read more...

A Very British Scandal, BBC One review - the wild life and times of the Duchess of Argyll

Adam Sweeting

The title might provoke a quick double-take. Wasn’t A Very British Scandal that series about Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott, starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw?

Read more...

The Amazing Mr Blunden, Sky Max / The Mezzotint, BBC Two reviews - blundering Blunden eclipsed by M R James

Adam Sweeting

Friday night was Mark Gatiss night.

Read more...

The Girl Before, BBC One review - high-tech dream home contains many a heartache

Adam Sweeting

Would you be willing to play the guinea pig in a designer-superhome created by a deranged architect?

Read more...

You Don't Know Me, BBC One review - true love meets inner-city crime wave

Adam Sweeting

I sympathised with the prosecuting barrister when she put it to the court that the accused, a man called Hero (Samuel Adewunmi), was “using his closing speech to construct a work of fiction”.

Read more...

Hellbound, Netflix review - supernatural assassins usher in an age of terror

Adam Sweeting

Netflix is sometimes criticised for bringing too much of everything to its online feast, but the way it’s opening up previously under-exposed territories is becoming seriously impressive.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
I Fought the Law, ITVX review - how an 800-year-old law was...

ITV continues its passion for docudramas about injustice, which you can’t...

theartsdesk at the Lahti Sibelius Festival - early epics by...

It’s weird, if wonderful, that vibrant young composers at the end of the 19th century should have featured death so prominently in their hero-...

Deaf Republic, Royal Court review - beautiful images, shame...

The Ukraine war is not the only place of horror in the world, but it does present a challenge to theatre makers who want to respond to events that...

Album: Josh Ritter - I Believe in You, My Honeydew

Americana rocker Josh Ritter can write a beautiful song....

Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares, Underbelly Boulevard Soho revie...

Laura Benanti has been enchanting Broadway audiences for several decades now, and London has this week been let in on the secret that recently...

Waley-Cohen, Manchester Camerata, Pether, Whitworth Art Gall...

Manchester Camerata is enhancing its reputation for pioneering with three performances featuring Nick Martin’s new Violin Concerto, which it has...

The Courageous review - Ophélia Kolb excels as a single moth...

“I never abandoned you,” says Jule (Ophélia Kolb; Call My Agent!) to her 10-year-old daughter Claire (Jasmine Kalisz Saurer), setting a...

Album: David Byrne - Who is the Sky?

From his early days with Talking Heads, David Byrne has ploughed a highly individual furrow, and exploited a persona that combines naivety with...