tv
Little Boy Blue review – 'the sum of all fears'Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Turning the real-life murder of an 11-year-old boy into a four-part TV drama carries obvious risks (might it be exploitative, sick or in bad taste, for instance?), but judging by this opening episode of Little Boy Blue (ITV), screenwriter Jeff Pope has skilfully walked the line. Read more... |
Broadchurch review - the final reckoningTuesday, 18 April 2017
“Take your pick. Who shall we talk to first?” DI Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and DS Miller (Olivia Colman) had their three prime suspects waiting for them in custody. Read more... |
Homeland review - 'worryingly prescient'Monday, 17 April 2017
It was a long time coming, but Homeland’s sixth series at last awoke from its early-season slumbers to put on a late surge over the closing episodes. Read more... |
Maigret's Night at the Crossroads review - 'more straight faces from Rowan Atkinson'Monday, 17 April 2017
We’re three films into Rowan Atkinson’s tenure as Inspector Maigret and so far he’s barely twitched a facial muscle. Gone are the eye bulges and nostril flares, the rubbery pouts. There’s sometimes a hint of a frown, the odd twinge in a wrinkle around the eyes, but Atkinson’s performance continues mainly to be about keeping his cards superglued to his chest. Gnomic is about the size of it. Read more... |
Guerrilla review – 'it takes itself fantastically seriously'Friday, 14 April 2017
Devised and written by John Ridley, the Oscar-winning writer of 12 Years a Slave, Guerrilla (Sky Atlantic) takes us back to London, 1971. Read more... |
Our Friend Victoria review – Victoria Wood’s genius is irreplaceableWednesday, 12 April 2017
In the closing credits of Acorn Antiques, wobbling diagonally across the screen, it says the part of Berta was taken by “Victoria Woods”. Has there ever been a lovelier, truer typo? There was only one Victoria Wood, and yet she seemed somehow to be plural. Read more... |
Vera, Series 7, review - 'brilliant Blethyn stuck in bog-standard drama'Monday, 10 April 2017
Sunshine, sex and oodles of style: Vera (ITV) has no truck with any of them and is therefore unusual among Sunday evening dramas. There’s no escaping its mission to prove it’s grimy up north. Read more... |
The Last Kingdom - 'one of the very best things on television'Friday, 07 April 2017
The first series of The Last Kingdom in 2015 kicked off with a blockbuster episode which managed to encompass savage violence, dynastic rivalry and a speedy tour of the state of Britain in the ninth century, while allowing the central protagonist, Uhtred, to grow from boy to man. It was a virtuoso feat, and one which the opener of series two couldn’t quite repeat. Read more... |
Mary Magdalene: Art's Scarlet Woman, review - 'lugubrious'Friday, 07 April 2017
Mary Magdalene: Art's Scarlet Woman (BBC Four) is, says art critic Waldemar Januszczak, a film about a woman who probably never existed. "So why,” he asks, “are we so obsessed with her?” He delivers the answer in breathy, lugubrious tones as if sharing a dirty secret. The story, he says, is “sweaty, sensuous and naughty... Read more... |
Henry IX, UK Gold, review - 'return of sitcom classics'Thursday, 06 April 2017
It has been a long, long time since Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais wrote a new sitcom; in their heyday they created The Likely Lads and its sequel, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, all of which have become classics of the genre. Read more... |
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