sat 05/07/2025

tv

Morse/Lewis/Hathaway: vote in our heretical Facebook poll

theartsdesk

There is an intriguing heresy planted several paragraphs down in Adam’s review of Lewis, which resumed last night on ITV. “It’s the relationship between Lewis and Hathaway that makes the thing worth watching. In fact, it sometimes seems more interesting than the slightly ponderous master-and-servant routine Lewis used to go through with Morse.”

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No room for Room at the Top?

Jasper Rees

Anyone turning on BBC Four last night expecting to watch the first episode of Room at the Top will, at least in part, have got what they were expecting: lashings of sex. Only one problem. It wasn't in Room at the Top. Owing to a late-blooming rights dispute, the BBC decided on the day of broadcast not to go ahead with their new adaptation of John Braine's 1957 novel. On the principle that if you would have liked that, then you'll like this, they had a rummage in the...

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The Kennedys get the Dynasty treatment

Adam Sweeting Greg Kinnear, looking the part as John F Kennedy in TV miniseries 'The Kennedys'

Ever controversial, America's Kennedy clan continues to create turbulence. On Thursday, 7 April, the History Channel in the UK will begin airing a new $30 million miniseries, The Kennedys, which traces the lives and political fortunes of John F Kennedy, his brother Bobby and their domineering father Joe. But the History Channel's American counterpart announced in January it was dropping the show (which stars...

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BBC orders second helping of Silk

Adam Sweeting Legal eagles Rupert Penry-Jones and Maxine Peake in 'Silk'

theartsdesk readers were aghast and appalled when BBC One supremo Danny Cohen cancelled detective series Zen after a paltry three episodes. However, he has made amends of a sort by commissioning a second series of Peter Moffat's legal drama Silk, after series one ended...

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Hawaii Five-O comes to Sky1

Adam Sweeting Return to 'Five-0': (l to r) Grace Park, Scott Caan, Alex O'Loughlin, Daniel Dae Kim

Thirty years after the original series came to the end of its 12-year history, Hawaii Five-0 is about to burst back onto British TV. The new-look Five-0 kicked off in September last year on the American CBS network, and will debut on Sky1/Sky1 HD in the UK in February.

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Sky Atlantic seeks TV's higher ground

Adam Sweeting Steve Buscemi in 'Boardwalk Empire', having it large in 1920s Atlantic City

Sky hasn't generally been synonymous with top TV drama, but its new channel, Sky Atlantic HD, is aiming to change that. Launching on 1 February, the channel has been built around Sky's deal with the American HBO network, which means viewers will get access to the entire history of The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet UnderSex and the City and The Wire.

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Geoffrey Burgon revisited, 1941-2010

theartsdesk

To most the music will be more familiar than the name. Geoffrey Burgon, who has died, devoted only a minor portion of his career to composing for television.

He also wrote for piano, for trumpet (which he studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama), for guitar quartet and all manner of chamber group. In 1991 he composed an operatic version of Dickens's Hard Times. Above all he composed for choirs - most notably his Requiem for the Three Choirs Festival in 1976.

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Blair/Marr: theartsdesk's second review on Twitter

theartsdesk

Tony Blair has a book to flog. Andrew Marr has an interview to conduct. And theartsdesk has another TV programme to review live on Twitter.

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BBC Two announces The Crimson Petal and the White

Adam Sweeting

crimson_petal_coverKeen to boost its credentials as “the home of intelligent and ambitious drama”, BBC Two has announced details of its dramatisation of Michel Faber’s bestselling novel, The Crimson Petal and the White. Adapted into four 60 minute episodes by playwright and...

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Stoppard returns to TV

Adam Sweeting

After a 20-year absence from British TV, Sir Tom Stoppard returns to the small screen next year with his five-part adaptation of Ford Madox Ford's novel, Parade's End, on BBC Two. When the BBC approached Stoppard (pictured) with the idea two years ago, he had never read the book, but says that it "has been my preoccupation since then. The title covers a quartet of books set among the upper class in Edwardian England, mostly from 1911 to the end of the Great War."

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