Mark Sanderson
Mark Sanderson
Articles by Mark Sanderson
Last Tango in Halifax, BBC One
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
The title says it all: Bertolucci’s landmark (if boring) French film has its last word changed from Paris to Halifax – where butter is only used for glazing parsnips. The very idea of Derek Jacobi... Read more... |
Southland, Series Four, More4
Friday, 16 November 2012
Each episode of Southland – the best American cop show since The Shield – begins frenetically and never lets up – except for a freeze-frame in the first minute which the rest of the show spools back... Read more... |
The Hour, Series 2, BBC Two
Thursday, 15 November 2012
The first rule of temptation is to yield to it slowly, says a sozzled roué surrounded by semi-clad lovelies, it’s much more fun that way… The Hour is back and, the silly conspiracy strand sewn up at... Read more... |
Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs, BBC Two
Saturday, 29 September 2012
At boarding school in the mid-1970s Matron – a grey-haired, sharp-beaked stick of a woman who put the fear of God into us – would often remark: “Remember, boys, always be polite to the lower orders... Read more... |
Downton Abbey, Series 3, ITV1
Monday, 17 September 2012
Mid-September: the nights are drawing in and, to quote that well-known costume dramatist John Milton, the period detail is as “thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa”. Downton... Read more... |
The Scapegoat, ITV1
Monday, 10 September 2012
The small screen has always been as much a mirror as a window into other worlds. Even when the picture-box is switched off it reflects the viewer. If light is both particle and wave, glass is both... Read more... |
A Mother's Son, ITV1
Tuesday, 04 September 2012
We have been here before: The Killing wasn’t the first crime drama to open with a damsel in distress. This time it’s a schoolgirl who is being chased across the sand dunes at night. She has been... Read more... |
Good Cop, BBC One
Friday, 31 August 2012
A sense of déjà vu strikes from the very first shot. It is a dark and stormy night. A lone man staggers down an empty street through the lashing rain. Once indoors we see he has blood on his hands. A... Read more... |
Accused, Series Two, BBC One
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Jimmy McGovern’s one-man mission to boost the quota of Scousers seen on the small screen continues in “Stephen’s Story” – the latest bout of button-pushing misery otherwise known as Accused.... Read more... |
Our War: Into the Hornet's Nest, BBC Three
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
It is a Hollywood truism that any film that begins with amateur footage of happy, smiling people ends in tears. Our War was no exception: fit young men messed about in the sun and somersaulted into... Read more... |
The Best of Men, BBC Two
Friday, 17 August 2012
Lucy Gannon is the doyenne of drama-lite. Anyone who has seen Bramwell or Soldier, Soldier or Peak Practice will know her scripts, no matter how much suffering the characters... Read more... |
Ruth Rendell's Thirteen Steps Down, ITV1
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
The red and black opening titles, in which a creepy house looms large, immediately tells the viewer we are in Hitchcock territory. However, Thirteen Steps Down, knowingly adapted for the small... Read more... |