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The Last Kingdom, Series Finale, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Friday, 11 December 2015

Though Alfred the Great was renowned for educational and social reforms as much as for whupping the Danes on the battlefield, I'd never pictured him the way David Dawson has been playing him in The Last Kingdom. Pallid and sickly-looking, and plagued by all-too-human frailties, this Alfred looked more like a weedy consumptive poet than the midfield dynamo of embattled Ninth Century England.

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Secrets of the Mona Lisa, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Thursday, 10 December 2015

There’s a lot of breathless frontloading in television documentaries. The headlines promising shock and awe coming up are posted in the opening edit as a way of hooking in the remote-wielding viewer. Very often as presenters stump around history’s muddy digs or leaf through dusty old tomes, the revelations vouchsafed turn out to be a bit iffy, a bit yeah but no but so what? The hyperventilation is often a precursory guarantee of bathos. You’d be better off reading the book.

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London Spy, Series Finale, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 08 December 2015

Well, they're saying this was the final episode, but these days you never know how long TV's ratings-hungry marketeers might eke a successful show out for. London Spy 2 would be a major ask, considering how this series somehow spun a bare minimum of content (even though it was shrouded in oodles of atmosphere) out to five episodes. Still, the ending didn't really end, so watch this space.

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I'm Not in Love: The Story of 10cc, BBC Four

Jasper Rees Saturday, 05 December 2015

10cc were the closest the Seventies came to a Fab Four. They were multi-talented vocalists and instrumentalists, came from Lancashire, were technologically ahead of the curve, wrote classy, inventive pop songs in a bewildering array of styles, suffered from dodgy management, were lucky to find one another and calamitously split up far too soon. Since when they’ve cast a very long shadow indeed.

Toast of London, Channel 4

Matthew Wright Thursday, 03 December 2015

Jon Hamm, Mad Men’s swooningly handsome Don Draper, is not only a fine celebrity catch for a series rapidly gathering comic momentum. Since nothing in Toast of London is ever to be taken at face value, Hamm is also two kinds of puns: ham on toast, the snack, and ham, the exaggerated style of acting much in evidence during the show. It all added up to another delicious episode of this extravagantly multi-layered show.

Dan Cruickshank: Resurrecting History – Warsaw, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey Thursday, 03 December 2015

Dan Cruickshank, that enthusiastic architectural historian, who likes nothing better than some scaffolding he can clamber up to get a better look, revealed that as a child of seven he moved some 60 years ago to Warsaw with his family. His father, then a member of the Communist Party, was posted to the Polish capital by the Daily Worker as their correspondent.

The Secret Life of 5 Year Olds, Channel 4

Barney Harsent Friday, 27 November 2015

Kids today eh? Eh? Ask them what they want to be and they’ll probably reply, “famous” or “rich.” I mean, really… what do they aspire to? What do they want? Wearable tech and a free pass to the Boot Camp stage of The X Factor at a guess. Tell you what, let's ask five-year-old Emily. "Emily, what do you want to be when you grow up?" "A jelly maker. A pencil sharpener!" Ooooooookay. I wasn’t expecting that. Good answer. I hope, one day, she achieves her dream.

Jessica Jones, Netflix

Barney Harsent Thursday, 26 November 2015

After the roaring success of Daredevil this year, Marvel brings us the next instalment in the TV rendering of their universe – or part of it at least. Jessica Jones, created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Gaydos in 2001, is a failed superhero and volatile PI who copes with her demons by drinking so heavily that at least one of her superpowers seems to reside in her liver. Super strength, near-flight and a fine line in withering sarcasm make up the rest.

Capital, BBC One

Tom Birchenough Wednesday, 25 November 2015

If the title wasn’t already occupied, television-wise, the BBC might have titled Capital “The Street”. It’s got the high soar-aways over urban geography that recall the soaps, but here they spread wider, taking in a metropolis.

Arena: Night and Day, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey Monday, 23 November 2015

Arena is the longest-running arts documentary programme for television at the BBC, and perhaps the world: as the BBC itself phrases it, this compendium celebration presented 24 hours in 90 minutes for 40 years, marking the show's latest anniversary. Conceived by the ever-creative and energetic Humphrey Burton all that while ago, Arena has made over 600 films, looking at high and low culture with equal curiosity, alacrity and even audacity.