thu 28/03/2024

Newcastle

Boy Meets Girl, BBC Two

Any romcom that begins with a woman saying the line “I was born with a penis” is OK by me. And that's how Boy Meets Girl, a superb new comedy created by Elliott Kerrigan, begins a six-part series.Kerrigan and co-writer Simon Carlyle have neatly made...

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Wet House, Soho Theatre

When gifting the unheard a voice, the temptation is often to make it a solemn one. Thankfully, Paddy Campbell has, for the most part, sidestepped puritanical preaching in his debut play based on experiences working at a ‘wet house’, a homeless...

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Listening, BALTIC 39, Hayward Touring

Traditionally, art exhibitions have been about looking, but as more and more artists cross boundaries to engage with sound, touch and movement or to use film and video, work that is static and silent is becoming the exception rather than the rule....

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Inspector George Gently, Series 6, BBC One

“I like it when you’re a bastard,” George Gently growled at his sidekick, halfway into the first episode of this sixth series set in 1960s Northumberland, reassuring us that the partnership is very much back on when all appeared to be lost the last...

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CD: Lanterns on the Lake – Until the Colours Run

Newcastle’s Lanterns on the Lake have quietly gone about the business of perfecting their mood music. Each time they surface, their music gains another level of intensity and assumes a greater focus. This progress suggests their second album, Until...

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Cheryl: Access All Areas, ITV2

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...

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The Unthanks, Songs from the Shipyards, Purcell Room

When The Unthanks staggered into the spotlight with their haunting and beguiling Mercury Award-nominated 2007 album The Bairns, with bracing songs about infant mortality and child abuse, they became a folk band adored by people who don’t even like...

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Northern Sinfonia, Zehetmair, The Sage Gateshead

Sting, Debbie Harry, the Pet Shop Boys, Brahms, Mozart, Schumann. This is the kind of thing an average year throws up for the Gateshead-based Northern Sinfonia. Their visits to London are mostly to provide a backing track for the top pop acts. Which...

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CD: Cheryl - A Million Lights

Apparently Cheryl Cole is now “the nation’s sweetheart”. These days that doesn’t mean broadcasting sung radio support to a besieged island while the Nazis plot our demise 21 miles across the English Channel. No, instead, all it requires is smiling...

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Vera, Series Two, ITV1

It becomes increasingly difficult for a detective to create any sort of elbow room on the small flat screen in the corner. Up in Denmark they’ve been taking the extreme route, where the dour, bejumpered Sara Lund of The Killing looks like a Butlins...

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Hit the Road Jack, Channel 4

It can't be often that producers are faced with the agreeable problem of trying to shoehorn in several talents when devising a debut solo vehicle for a stand-up making the transition to television entertainer, but Hit the Road Jack's makers had that...

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The Sarah Millican Television Programme, BBC Two

There comes a point in every successful stand-up's career when television executives start calling. First it's appearances on panel and quiz shows, then a solo programme that showcases their live talents - but what then? Not everyone is a Graham...

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