tv
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust in the lingerie tradeThursday, 29 May 2025
As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it has been a wild ride for Baroness Mone of Mayfair, the self-made businesswoman who emerged from Dennistoun in Glasgow’s East End in the Nineties and created the Ultimo Bra. This revolutionary undergarment ingeniously enhanced the wearer’s cleavage, using a silicon gel to mimic the feel of real breast tissue. Read more... |
Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality of deaf people's experienceThursday, 22 May 2025
In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV detective series, the spotlight has now landed on Canterbury. Code of Silence frequently inserts a dramatic aerial shot of the city, its streets radiating out from the towering ecclesiastical landmark at its centre, to remind us where we are. Read more... |
The Bombing of Pan Am 103, BBC One review - new dramatisation of the horrific Lockerbie terror attackMonday, 19 May 2025
The appalling destruction of Pan Am’s flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 was put under the spotlight in January this year in Sky Atlantic’s Lockerbie: A Search for Truth. This focused on the dogged and agonising search for truth by Jim Swire (played by Colin Firth), whose daughter Flora was killed in the attack, and raised a host of possibilities and theories about who did it and why. Read more... |
The Trunk, Netflix review - stylish, noir-ish Korean drama wrapped around a beguiling love storyThursday, 08 May 2025
The trunk in the title is a luxury item, worth 50 million won – just north of £27,000 – shown sinking in deep water in the opening credits. It weaves through one of the classiest recent collaborations between Netflix and Korean TV, a haunting psychological drama that’s balm to the soul after the mob-handed violence on offer here at home. Read more... |
Malpractice, ITV1, Series 2 review - fear and loathing in the psychiatric unitTuesday, 06 May 2025
Following on from the first series of Malpractice in 2023, this second season again probes into issues of medical malfeasance and institutional corruption, in an environment where patient care frequently comes second to internal politics and self-preservation. The protagonist first time around was Niamh Algar’s Dr Lucinda Edwards, but this time it’s Tom Hughes as Dr James Ford, who works as a psychiatric registrar at the fictional Queen Mother’s University Hospital. Read more... |
Fake, ITV1 review - be careful what you wish forSunday, 04 May 2025
The art of the conman is persuading their victim to fool themselves, which is the premise that lies at the core of this Australian drama series. Read more... |
Formula E: Driver, Prime Video review - inside the world's first zero-carbon sportSaturday, 03 May 2025
The success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive not only provoked a viewer-stampede towards the world’s most expensive sport, but also triggered a chain reaction of similar behind-the-scenes sports documentaries. Suddenly we had Break Point (tennis), Full Swing (golf) and Tour de France: Unchained (cycling, obviously), hotly pursued by series on rugby, soccer and American Indiecar racing. Read more... |
Flintoff, Disney+ review - tumultuous life and times of the great all-rounderThursday, 24 April 2025
Documentaries about sports stars are now a dime a dozen, but you can only be as good as your subject matter. Read more... |
Your Friends & Neighbors, Apple TV+ review - in every dream home a heartacheMonday, 14 April 2025
It had begun to seem that Jon Hamm, whatever other roles he might appear in, was destined to be forever remembered exclusively as Mad Men’s Don Draper. Character and actor had made such a perfect fit that it was impossible to prise them apart. I always liked the idea of Hamm as a retro-James Bond set in Ian Fleming’s original 1950s period, but they wouldn’t listen. Read more... |
MobLand, Paramount+ review - more guns, goons and gangsters from Guy RitchieFriday, 04 April 2025
A year ago Guy Ritchie brought us the Netflix series The Gentlemen, and now here he is on Paramount+ with his latest romp through the verdant pastures of criminal low-lifery. It seems that top thespians are queueing up to bag a slice of Ritchie-world, and an impressive cast includes Pierce Brosnan, Tom Hardy and Helen Mirren. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust...
As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it...
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Thankfully, Julia Burbach’s version of The Flying Dutchman for Opera Holland Park doesn’t try to be one of those concept-laden...
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As a regular theatregoer, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no story too bizarre to work as a...
Album: Sally Shapiro - Ready to Live a Lie
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Il Trittico, Opéra de Paris review - reordered Puccini works...
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Marwood, Crabb, Wigmore Hall review - tangos, laments and an...
James Crabb is a musical magician, taking the ever-unfashionable accordion into new and unlikely places, through bespoke arrangements of a...