tv reviews
Adam Sweeting

Not the least interesting aspect of Give Us The Money, an examination of the effectiveness of famous pop stars campaigning to end poverty in Africa, was how historical it felt. Homing in specifically on Bob Geldof and Bono, who between then have spent decades hectoring the public, berating politicians and schmoozing billionaires with a view to alleviating the sufferings of millions of starving Africans, it was a glimpse into a lost world of stadium rock, furry non-HD video and political yesterday's men, like Gordon Brown and George W Bush.

Jasper Rees

Somebody has missed a trick in not promoting Getting On to BBC Two. Where The Thick of It earned its spurs on BBC Four before graduating to a larger audience, and Gavin and Stacey made the comparable journey from BBC Three to BBC One, the sitcom set in an NHS hospital has not qualified for a transfer. It’s a great pity that it has not found a wider audience, because last night’s conclusion to the third series was a masterpiece of subtle revelation and, rarer still for a sitcom, deep humanity.

Mark Sanderson

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 taking Anne Reid up the scullery is enough to put anyone off their food but the two grandes dames of English theatre add class to the bittersweet romance of Sally Wainwright’s dog’s-dinner of a drama.

Thomas H. Green

What is the point of this? Someone somewhere must have imagined Cheryl: Access All Areas was a passably entertaining idea yet it makes Come Dine With Me look like Kick Ass. It’s the antithesis of watchable and a complete waste of time - boringly constructed, badly filmed, jam-packed with nothing revealing, amusing or exciting from start to finish. In short, there’s more fun to be had scraping burnt cheese off your cooker.

Jasper Rees

The horror, the horror. Primetime television tends to give a wide berth to things that go bump in the night. However reliable a low-budget option for budding indie filmmakers, the chills are not multiplying on the small screen. There’s no need to call in a special spookologist to work out why. Horror has its own demographic, which won’t tend to curl up on the sofa of a Sunday night for a cosy hour of creaks and shrieks. So The Secret of Crickley Hall, which has slung on a white sheet and crept into the nation’s living room, is a bit of collector’s item.

Kieron Tyler

Zipping her trousers while coming out of a toilet cubicle, Sarah Lund continues the phone conversation that was on-going while she was in there. Making for a sink to wash her hands, she ignores the puppyish man trying to attract her attention. Nothing is going to distract Chief Inspector Lund, whether it’s the call of nature or the new police kid on the block.

Mark Sanderson

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 to explain. In this first part of the fourth season, one of LA’s finest is out of his black-and-white and chasing a suspect within seconds as his partner careers down the back alleys of South Los Angeles.

Mark Sanderson

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 the end of the first series, better than ever.

Jasper Rees

The BBC has other things on its to-do list at the minute. However, once all the newly installed acting heads have been replaced by actual heads, and the matter of the ex-DG’s severance pay sufficiently chewed over by the Corporation’s bosom pals in the Fourth Estate and the Conservative Party, perhaps someone at TV Centre could get around to other business. The search, for example, for a costume drama capable of giving Downton Abbey a bloody nose.

terry.friel

There was a memorable, very French moment in a television series hosted by the great British wine writer, presenter and Master of Wine Jancis Robinson. A French winemaker, asked to taste an Australian wine, swills in disdain and pointedly walks outside, on camera, to spit it out. It’s not good enough even to slosh the floor of his traditional wineshed.