sat 25/05/2013

TV reviews, news & interviews

David Bowie - Five Years, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting

Picking five creatively significant years was quite a smart way of tackling the huge career of David Bowie, though you could argue forever about whether producer/director Francis Whately had chosen the right ones. What about 1969 and the Space Oddity album, or 1970 and The Man Who Sold the World? How about a really bad year like 1987, which gave us Never Let Me Down and the egregious Glass Spider tour?But the film is what it is rather than what it isn't, and most of what we got was fascinating...

The Tudors Season, BBC Two

Jasper Rees

Is the BBC taking dictation from the Gradgrindian brain of Michael Gove? According to the education secretary’s latest wacky diktat, what the nation’s children want is facts facts facts. Plus, in the teaching of history, lots of stuff about England/Britain giving Johnny Foreigner a bloody conk. So let’s give it up one more time for the Tudors, who are essentially our very own Nazis. This is less for the dodgy human rights record than their permanent status as a small-screen visitor...

Case Histories, BBC One

Veronica Lee

He's back - and he's even moodier than before. Jackson Brodie, the private dick for whom the word “brooding” was invented, hasn't been seen on BBC...

The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women, BBC Four

Tom Birchenough

You can only marvel at the family intrigues that virtually closed down the legacy of photographer Erwin Blumenfeld in the years following his death...

Rock ‘n’ Roll Britannia, BBC Four

Kieron Tyler

From being “a strange facsimile of the original” to generating the “first British record made by people who are 100 per cent convinced that they are...

Frankie, BBC One

Jasper Rees

New primetime district nurse dispenses a spoonful of sugar

The Fall, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting

There's a serial killer on the loose. Do try to curb your enthusiasm

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Murder in Angel Lane, ITV

Lisa-Marie Ferla

Could ITV be setting up a series with its returning 19th-century detective?

British Academy Television Awards 2013, BBC One

Adam Sweeting

Annual gathering of the tellyocracy fails to set pulses racing

Life of Crime/Murder on the Home Front, ITV

Jasper Rees

Fancy a bit of charnel hopping? Two new crime dramas pile on the corpses

Great Artists: In Their Own Words, BBC Four

Fisun Güner

The BBC tries to cover up its own history of uptight, anti avant-garde conservatism

Justified, Series 4, 5USA

Lisa-Marie Ferla

Quietly brilliant US drama returns for a fourth series of suspense and black humour

The Apprentice, Series 9, BBC One

Veronica Lee

The entrepreneur show is back and bang on form

The Village, Series Finale, BBC One/Endeavour, Series Finale, ITV

Adam Sweeting

The villagers lick their war wounds, and young Morse displays precocious investigative skills

Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene, Sky Arts 1

Tom Birchenough

Psychological focus on the writer, strongest on Greene as traveller and film enthusiast

The Genius of Marie Curie, BBC Two

Tom Birchenough

The scientist's life proves too large for an hour-long documentary

The Mafia’s Secret Bunkers, BBC Two

William Ward

Lack of meaty footage undermines investigation of Calabria's 'Ndrangheta

Archaeology: A Secret History, BBC Four

Jasper Rees

Documentary about digging doesn't stray below the surface

Vicious/The Job Lot, ITV

Veronica Lee

Two passable but very different sitcoms make their debuts

Rupert Murdoch: Battle with Britain/United States of Television: America in Primetime, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting

Rupert Murdoch dissected, but in a good way. Plus television on television

DVD: The Brontës of Haworth

Fisun Güner

Not much incident in this five-part dramatisation of the lives of the talented siblings but a strong ensemble cast

The Politician's Husband, BBC Two

Julian White

Self-important politicos slain by arrogance, treachery and laughable dialogue

Watson & Oliver, Series 2, BBC Two

Jasper Rees

Second time round for sketch show which carries on lampooning female quirks

Playhouse Presents: Snodgrass, Sky Arts 1

Kieron Tyler

Curious fantasy about a John Lennon who left The Beatles in 1962

The Wright Way, BBC One

Veronica Lee

Awful, unfunny timewarp sitcom from Ben Elton

Broadchurch, Series Finale, ITV

Adam Sweeting

ITV's hit crime series drags itself wearily across the finishing line

Panorama - Secrets of Britain's Shari'a Courts, BBC One

Lisa-Marie Ferla

BBC journalists go behind the scenes of Shari'a divorce cases

The Prisoners, BBC One

Julian White

For the inmates of Holloway prison, the jailhouse rocks. The real world... not so much

The Ice Cream Girls, ITV

Adam Sweeting

A dark secret from the Nineties haunts Poppy and Serena, but do we care?

Footnote: a brief history of British TV

You could almost chart the history of British TV by following the career of ITV's Coronation Street, as it has ridden 50 years of social change, seen off would-be rivals, survived accusations of racism and learned to live alongside the BBC's EastEnders. But no single programme, or even strand of programmes, can encompass the astonishing diversity and creativity of TV-UK since BBC TV was officially born in 1932.

Nostalgists lament the demise of single plays like Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home or Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party, but drama series like The Jewel in the Crown, Edge of Darkness, Our Friends in the North, State of Play, the original Upstairs Downstairs or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will surely loom larger in history's rear-view mirror, while perhaps Julian Fellowes' surprise hit, Downton Abbey, heralds a new wave of the classic British costume drama. For that matter, indestructible comic creations like George Cole's Arthur Daley in Minder, Nigel Hawthorne's Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister, the Steptoes, Arthur Lowe and co in Dad's Army, John Cleese's Fawlty Towers or Only Fools and Horses insinuate themselves between the cracks of British life far more persuasively than the most earnest television documentary (at which Britain has become world-renowned).

British sci-fi will never out-gloss Hollywood monoliths like Battlestar Galactica, but Nigel Kneale's Quatermass stories are still influential 60 years later, and the reborn Doctor Who has been a creative coup for the BBC. British series from the Sixties like The Avengers, Patrick McGoohan's bizarre brainchild The Prisoner or The Saint (with the young Roger Moore) have bounced back as major influences on today's Hollywood, and re-echo through the BBC's enduringly successful Spooks.

Meanwhile, though British comedy depends more on maverick inspiration than the sleek industrialisation deployed by US television, that didn't stop Monty Python from becoming a global legend, or prevent Ricky Gervais being adopted as an American mascot. True, you might blame British TV (and Simon Cowell) for such monstrosities as The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent, but the entire planet has lapped them up. And we can console ourselves that Britain also gave the world Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, David Attenborough's epic nature series Life on Earth and The Blue Planet, as well as Kenneth Clark's Civilisation. The Arts Desk brings you overnight reviews and news of the best (and worst) of TV in Britain. Our writers include Adam Sweeting, Jasper Rees, Veronica Lee, Alexandra Coghlan, Fisun Güner, Josh Spero and Gerard Gilbert.

Close Footnote

Free Newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday - free!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters

latest in today

David Bowie - Five Years, BBC Two

Impressive survey of Bowie's golden years probes the music as well as...

Berezovsky, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Järvi, Royal Fes...

The great Estonian returns for classic interpretations with his Swiss orche...

CD: Laura Marling - Once I Was an Eagle

Prolific young songwriter releases her 'Blonde on Blonde'

Neko Case/Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Village Underground, Lond...

Memorable moments aplenty as Americana goddess makes a long-awaited UK retu...

Raven Girl, Royal Ballet/ Witch-Hunt, Bern Ballett/ The Grea...

Story-ballets are back, with witches, raven girls and the all too scrutable...

Classical CDs Weekly: Frank Martin, Mei Yi Foo, Powerplant

A Grimm take on Cinderella, a brilliant anthology of contemporary piano mus...

Lohengrin, Welsh National Opera

WNO in their element in wide-stage Wagner marred by vocal problems

The Tudors Season, BBC Two

Mantel goes head to head with Starkey as Henry VIII executes everyone all o...

The Hangover Part III

Subdued finale for the laddish franchise

Metro: Last Light

The dark, the mutants and the other survivors – fear rules this bleak first...