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The Quite Remarkable David Coleman, BBC OneThursday, 22 May 2014
It says something about your status in broadcasting when you inspire not only a Spitting Image puppet, but also have a Private Eye column named after you. Presenter, commentator, interviewer and quizmaster David Coleman, as the title says, really was quite remarkable, a broadcaster as well known as the sportsmen and women whose achievements he commented on for four decades, and celebrated for his distinctive style in front of a microphone. Read more... |
Penny Dreadful, Sky AtlanticWednesday, 21 May 2014
We've had endless waves of vampires, zombies and Frankenstein's monsters, so why not bundle them all together under the same doomily Gothic roof? Welcome to Penny Dreadful, created by writer John Logan and producer Sam Mendes (who previously worked together on the Bond movie Skyfall), in which we descend into a "demi-monde" of monsters and necromancy in Victorian London. Read more... |
The Culture Show: Lynn Barber's Celebrity Masterclass, BBC TwoTuesday, 20 May 2014
The best, and funniest, interview I’ve ever read – and I confess it’s attained almost mythic status in my memory – was an interview with the Chapman brothers by Lynn Barber. The brothers notoriously run rings around respectful journalists, but Barber isn’t one of those. So as she tried to elicit some properly confessional stuff from the former YBA artists, the interview got more and more surreal. Read more... |
The British Academy Television Awards 2014, BBC OneMonday, 19 May 2014
For some reason this year's telly-Baftas felt a bit flat and weary. Host Graham Norton seemed to labouring for laughs (when he wasn't moaning about his own show not winning anything), and anything resembling a surprise was thin on the ground. Read more... |
BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014, BBC FourMonday, 19 May 2014
No quibble about the result. Pianist Martin James Bartlett deservedly became BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014 at Usher Hall in Edinburgh last night. The 17-year-old, a student at the specialist Purcell School in Hertfordshire, and at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music took the title with a very strong performance of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Read more... |
Dylan Thomas: A Poet in New York, BBC TwoMonday, 19 May 2014
Swansea's much-mythologised son would have been 100 in October this year, but he died in New York in 1953, from a list of medical problems exacerbated by his colossal intake of alcohol. Thomas's doomed, chaotic trajectory could almost qualify as the first rock'n'roll death, since the New York that lionised him would soon hail the Beat poets, the Folk Revival and the Bob Dylan whose adopted name and freewheelin' versifying both bore Thomas's imprint. Read more... |
The Story of Women and Art, BBC TwoSaturday, 17 May 2014
Last year, the German artist Georg Baselitz told Der Spiegel: “Women don't paint very well. It's a fact,” citing as evidence the failure of works by female artists to sell for the massive sums raised by their male counterparts. The amusing punchline to that story is that shortly afterwards a Berthe Morisot painting sold at auction for more than double the amount ever achieved by Baselitz himself. But be honest - come on, use your fingers - how many women artists can you think of? Read more... |
Episodes, Series 3, BBC TwoThursday, 15 May 2014
How much is too much of quite a good thing? They – whoever they are – always say that two series is the platonic ideal for the perfectly formed sitcom. The example forever cited is Fawlty Towers, joined latterly by The Office. To that short list you could now add Rev, which after two series ceased to be a comedy in order to become something else. Read more... |
Monks, BBC OneWednesday, 14 May 2014
At least no one can accuse BBC comedy of an obsession with youth and relevance with this one. In airing a trial episode of Monks, an idea that’s been lurking in their ideas department for over ten years, the corporation’s comedy team is focusing on a lifestyle that was largely banished from English life by Henry VIII. Read more... |
The Crimson Field, Series 1 Finale, BBC OneMonday, 12 May 2014
After a tentative start, and several episodes of insipidity, Sarah Phelps's World War One nursing drama started to hit its straps just as series one reached its conclusion. The pace accelerated, the characters flung off their camouflage of tepid blandness, and suddenly everyone was struggling with crises, guilt and dark secrets. Read more... |
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