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In and Out of the Kitchen/BBC Four; Nurse/BBC Two

Veronica Lee Thursday, 12 March 2015

In and Out of the Kitchen (***), created and written by Miles Jupp, was first heard on Radio 4, a delightful spoof of celebrity chefs and our modern obsessions with food and having the perfect kitchen. Now Jupp and director Mandie Fletcher have brought it to television.

Sex, Lies and Love Bites: The Agony Aunt Story, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey Tuesday, 10 March 2015

Philippa Perry, 20 years a psychotherapist, was the dashing narrator of this history of 300 years of agony aunts (or uncles). Wearing a bright orange coat, she cycled between libraries, universities, newspaper and magazine offices, looking at centuries-old publications and interviewing contemporary writers. It was a fact-studded visual essay, but in spite of the raciness of its subject, oddly bland.

Comment

Poldark, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Monday, 09 March 2015

Hooray! The BBC has learned its lesson from the "Mumblegate" furore that erupted around last year's adaptation of Jamaica Inn, and ensured that even the most unwashed and toothless Cornish yokel in this all-new Poldark is almost 90 per cent intelligible. As the central character Ross Poldark, Aidan Turner (of Hobbit fame) is a model of robust actorly diction.

Comment

Banished, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Friday, 06 March 2015

Another tough night in with Jimmy McGovern. Banished may have taken ship to 18th-century New South Wales, whither the first British convicts have been expelled to a penal colony guarded by red-coated soldiers. But peer past the uniforms, the rifles and the tricorn hats and we have been lured yet again to McGovern’s favourite hangout, stuck somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

Super-Powered Owls: Natural World, BBC Two

Marina Vaizey Tuesday, 03 March 2015

The owl – symbol of wisdom, harbinger of death – is a powerful if disparate symbol in human mythology worldwide. But this outstanding visual essay provided a riveting array of astonishing facts to make of the bird something even more remarkable than the myth.

Arthur and George, ITV

Matthew Wright Tuesday, 03 March 2015

“Something strident and stirring – play to us now, please!” demands Martin Clunes’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the piano-playing vicar’s wife, on apprehending that their conversation is being eavesdropped on.

Pompidou, BBC Two

Veronica Lee Monday, 02 March 2015

Judging by its early-evening slot and diddly-dee theme tune, Matt Lucas's latest project is aimed at family audiences – far removed from the wonderful ribaldry of Little Britain with his comedy partner David Walliams - something to stick the kids in front of while the adults snooze off their Sunday roast.

Wolf Hall, Series Finale, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Thursday, 26 February 2015

Wolf Hall divided viewers from the off. It mesmerised many and left a vocal minority cold, for whom apparently - mystifyingly - it has all been a bit dull. The dialogue was too elliptical, the politics tricksy and convoluted (who is this Holy Roman Emperor anyway?), there was a surfeit of men called Thomas and women stitching in bay windows and big dresses.

Picasso: Love, Sex and Art, BBC Four

Fisun Güner Thursday, 26 February 2015

So, Picasso’s last words turned out not to be, “Drink to me. Drink to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore” – yes, those famous last words that inspired a Paul McCartney dirge – but were, according to this TV biography looking at Picasso’s women and how each significant relationship informed the direction of his work, “Get me some pencils”. A more prosaic request, certainly, but he died in bed, aged 93, his pencils delivered and drawing to the last. It was a good and fitting end.

The South Bank Show: Mark Rylance, Sky Arts 1

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Going into this programme, it dawned on me that I knew next to nothing about Mark Rylance's background – where he came from, who his parents were, what he does in his personal life. Having reached the end credits I was little the wiser, other than having learned that he has a wife called Claire, since none of it fell within the purview of Melvyn Bragg's interviewing.