fri 30/05/2025

tv

Judi Dench: My Passion for Trees, BBC One review - an arboreal delight

Marina Vaizey

“I am going to find out how much my trees live, breath, and even communicate. I am Judi Dench, and I have been an actor for 60 years – but I have had another passion ever since I was a little girl: I have adored trees. My six acres are a secret woodland, and my trees are part of my extended life.”

Read more...

Agatha Christie's Crooked House, Channel 5 review - actresses chew furniture for fun

Jasper Rees

Crooked House is being released as a film in various territories, but has already been shown on television in America and has now surfaced as a drama on Channel 5 bearing the title Agatha Christie’s Crooked House.

Read more...

Witnesses: A Frozen Death finale, BBC Four review - weirdo childbirth cult hits the buffers

Adam Sweeting

It’s remarkable how pervasive the Scandi-noir formula has become, with its penchant for weird and perverted killers, labyrinthine plotting and intriguingly flawed protagonists.

Read more...

The Tunnel: Vengeance, Sky Atlantic review - entente not-so-cordiale

Adam Sweeting

For the third and allegedly final time, we hasten back to the Kent coast for another outbreak of cross-Channel crime.

Read more...

Bancroft, ITV review - Sarah Parish's very cold case

Jasper Rees

This week we were all meant to be gripped by a bunch of ancient geezers nicking diamonds in Hatton Gardens. The postponement of ITV’s nightly four-part drama – the second of four (four!!) different versions of the infamous burglary – is a bit of a mystery. Now you see it on the cover of the Radio Times.

Read more...

Blue Planet II, BBC One review - just how fragile?

Katherine Waters

The eel is dying. Its body flits through a series of complicated knots which become increasingly grotesque torques. Immersed in a pool of brine — concentrated salt water five times denser than seawater — it is succumbing to toxic shock. As biomatter on the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico decomposes, brine and methane are produced, and where these saline pockets collect, nothing grows.

Read more...

The Crown, Series 2, Netflix review - all our yesterdays, cunningly rewritten

Adam Sweeting

Beneath the creamy overlay of gowns, crystal chandeliers, palaces, uniformed flunkies and a sumptuous (albeit CGI-enhanced) Royal Yacht, a steely pulse of realpolitik fuels The Crown, returning to Netflix for its much-anticipated second series.

Read more...

Howards End finale, BBC One review - who isn't going to miss the Schlegel sisters?

Jasper Rees

How good was Howards End (BBC One)? Practically flawless.

Read more...

Imagine... Rachel Whiteread: Ghosts in the Room, BBC Two review - making memories solid

Sarah Kent

Eureka! A programme about a woman artist that doesn’t define her as a wife and mother first and an artist second.

Read more...

The Farthest: Voyager's Interstellar Journey, BBC Four review - awe-inspiring and life-affirming space odyssey

Owen Richards

Long before Barack Obama spoke about the audacity of hope, the Voyager mission left the Earth driven by something else: the audacity of curiosity. What do the outer planets look like? What are they comprised of? And what’s beyond that?

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 201...

MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has...

10 Questions for Musician Michael Gira

Michael Gira (born 19/2/54) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, author and artist. He founded Swans, a band in which he sings and plays...

Album: Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The Light

Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end...

The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature

“I can’t move my arms or legs but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by his...

The Flying Dutchman, Opera Holland Park review - into the st...

Thankfully, Julia Burbach’s version of The Flying Dutchman for Opera Holland Park doesn’t try to be one of those concept-laden...

The Frogs, Southwark Playhouse review - great songs save upd...

As a regular theatregoer, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no story too bizarre to work as a...

Album: Sally Shapiro - Ready to Live a Lie

Ready to Live a Lie is so sonically vaporous it almost isn’t there. While the album’s 11 tracks draw from continental European musical...