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Downton Abbey, Series 4 Finale, ITV

Jasper Rees Sunday, 10 November 2013

So, another series down and what do we know? First up, until this final episode no one had died either by contractual agreement or Fellowesian godlike decree. We’ve had a rape, an unwanted pregnancy, a near abortion, a mysterious disappearance and a spot of senile dementia. Plus not one but two uppity colonial singers have drifted upstairs.

Dracula, Sky Living / Bates Motel, Universal

Adam Sweeting Friday, 08 November 2013

The Dracula story has seen almost infinite permutations, though none of them ever manages to improve on Bram Stoker's still-haunting original. This new Anglo-American production keeps Stoker's late 19th-century setting, but has transformed the befanged Count into a kind of supernatural corporate raider stalking the sneering, avaricious fatcats of the City of London.

Timeshift: When Coal Was King, BBC Four

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 05 November 2013

Energy is this season’s dirty word. The big six fix prices from their ivory towers beyond the national borders, and wouldn’t dream of turning up in person to take a fearful wigging from a Commons Select Committee. In the old days, it was all a bit different. Energy came overwhelming from coal, mined domestically by a huge workforce.

Live from the National Theatre: 50 Years on Stage, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Sunday, 03 November 2013

These celebrations of our yesterdays can easily end up all camembert and wind. But while film people and television people will generally cock such things up, we do still have the odd cultural institution which can be relied upon to throw the right sort of party. For the National Theatre's golden jubilee, therefore, the stops were jolly well pulled out and the invitations damn well accepted from the actors who, striplings at the Old Vic in the Sixties, are now our own Oliviers and Ashcrofts...

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Bedlam, Channel 4

Tom Birchenough Thursday, 31 October 2013

Compulsives may be wondering whether it was coincidence that Bedlam, Channel 4’s new four-part documentary following the work of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, reached our screens in the same week that the same channel’s Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners returned for a second series. The channel’s own internal debate as to whether it’s out to entertain or enlighten us has clearly not gone away.

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The Escape Artist, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 30 October 2013

Most of us like a good legal drama, which is why there have been so many of them. By the same logic, finding a fresh spin or a new way of writing and shooting them inevitably grows ever-tougher.

Ripper Street, Series Two, BBC One

Lisa-Marie Ferla Tuesday, 29 October 2013

Proof that the BBC’s love of gritty realism is not solely the province of Luther and similar modern-day urban crime dramas comes just minutes into the second series of Ripper Street, before the credits even roll.

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A Very English Education, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Monday, 28 October 2013

In the early 1980s the television producer Richard Denton was given considerable access and freedom of movement to make Public School. His documentary about Radley College remains the only really frank account of what goes on inside such an institution.

The Who: The Story of Tommy, BBC Four

Adam Sweeting Saturday, 26 October 2013

Grand claims and superlatives were not lacking in this examination of The Who's fabled rock opera. "This is a quintessentially important creation," said Des McAnuff, the man who staged Tommy on Broadway and in London's West End. "This might just be the first pop masterpiece," wrote pop critic (and Pete Townshend's pinball-playing buddy) Nik Cohn in his review in 1969.

Arena: The National Theatre, Part One - The Dream, BBC Four

Claudia Pritchard Friday, 25 October 2013

How irksome in some ways for the National Theatre that both the glamour and the accessibility of cinema have bookended its first 50 years, when the company and, latterly, its Southbank home, are essentially driven by and dedicated to live performance. But it was Laurence Olivier’s film career, making him a household name, which helped secure for him the job as first director of the National Theatre in 1963.