wed 13/11/2024

tv

Hacks, Prime Video review - what's so funny about a career in comedy?

Adam Sweeting

Acidic showbiz drama Hacks premiered on HBO Max in the States a year ago, and subsequently won a hatful of awards including three Emmys. Now, here it is on Prime Video, so we can get to see what all the fuss is about.

Read more...

The Split, Series 3, BBC One review - the Defoes are back, more conflicted than ever

Markie Robson-Scott

After two years away, Abi Morgan’s acclaimed legal drama/juicy soap The Split returns for its third series, reuniting us with the closely knit, or, you might say, incestuous, law firm of Noble Hale Defoe.

Read more...

Thatcher & Reagan: A Very Special Relationship, BBC Two review - when the Iron Lady met the Cowboy President

Adam Sweeting

This two-part documentary about how the Eighties were partly shaped by the British Prime Minister and the US President was obviously planned long before the Russians invaded Ukraine, but it’s a powerful illustration of how history doesn’t stop, but keeps coming around again in a slightly reformatted guise.

Read more...

Slow Horses, Apple TV+ review - the sleazy underbelly of the espionage racket

Helen Hawkins

To a camp bluesy theme tune performed by what sounds like a yowling cat (actually the song’s co-writer, Mick Jagger), this prestige production from Apple TV+ opens up the world of the “slow horses”, the disgraced spies who are the anti-heroes of Mick Herron’s bestselling spy novels. 

Read more...

Bridgerton, Season 2, Netflix review - power politics and love triangles as Regency fantasy returns

Adam Sweeting

The first series of Bridgerton (Netflix) became a ratings-blasting sensation because of the way it thrust a boldly multiracial cast into the midst of a Regency costume drama, and because of the camera-hogging presence of Regé-Jean Page as the swashbuckling Duke of Hastings. Above all, it had countless astonishingly graphic sex scenes.

Read more...

The Last Kingdom, Season 5, Netflix review - Danes-and-Saxons saga hurtles towards an epic climax

Adam Sweeting

Two years ago, the fourth season of The Last Kingdom (Netflix) found the Saxon saga not quite hitting peak form, possibly reeling from the fallout of the haunting death of King Alfred (David Dawson).

Read more...

Holding, ITV review - Graham Norton’s novel moves seamlessly to the small screen

Helen Hawkins

The terrain Holding occupies is well travelled, but this new ITV four-part drama travels over it really well. The landmarks are familiar: a quiet rural community, a cop with an unhealthy lifestyle and a secret sorrow, a feud between rival lovers of the local lothario, a long-buried trauma that’s suddenly unearthed. We could be in any rural location in the primetime drama of the past half-century.

Read more...

Drive to Survive, Season 4, Netflix review - bitter rivalries on and off the track

Adam Sweeting

Netflix’s fly-on-the-pitwall series has rapidly established itself as a vital ingredient in the tapestry of Formula One coverage, and is credited with giving the sport a huge boost in visibility and popularity, not least in the USA. This fourth outing (now featuring even more undeleted expletives than ever) takes a look back at 2021’s dramatic racing season, which ended in uproar and controversy in Abu Dhabi last December.

Read more...

Shane, Amazon Prime review - the outsized life and times of cricket's King of Spin

Adam Sweeting

Tragically, Shane Warne’s sudden death at age 52 means that Amazon’s new documentary about him has suddenly become an obituary as much as a celebration.

Read more...

The Ipcress File, ITV review – adaptation of Len Deighton thriller fires on all cylinders

Adam Sweeting

Sidney J Furie’s 1965 film The Ipcress File is a much-loved benchmark of its period. Stylish, sinister, witty and depicting a determinedly un-swinging London, it was conceived as the flipside to the absurdly glamorous James Bond movies and pulled it off with panache.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Interview: Roy Haynes, Jazz Drumming Giant (1925-2024)

Roy Haynes, who had begun to seem immortal, has died aged 99. In this extensive Arts Desk interview from 2011, one of the greatest jazz drummers...

First Person: Alec Frank-Gemmill on reasons for another reco...

One former teacher of mine said of their recording of the...

Album: Dolly Parton & Family - Smoky Mountain DNA - Fami...

This is almost too much to bear. This sprawling 37-track collection begins with the sainted 78-year-old Dolly Parton providing a jaunty spoken...

Natalie Palamides: Weer, Soho Theatre review - a romcom of t...

Natalie Palamides doesn't do things by halves. Actually, the Los Angeles-based clown does just that in her inventive new show Weer ...

Amyl and the Sniffers, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - rowdy...

Amy Taylor and the rest of the Sniffers ambled onto the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Academy to a huge roar of approval from a packed and diverse...

Blu-ray: The Oblong Box

The Oblong Box is a phantom 1969 follow-up to Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General, sharing star Vincent Price and much cast and...

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, BBC One review - handso...

“Previously on Wolf Hall…” It’s been nine years since Claire Foy memorably trembled her way to the block as Anne Boleyn,...

Andrej Power, LSO, Mäkelä, Barbican review - singing, shriek...

Out of innumerable Rite of Springs in half a century of concert-going, I’ll stick my neck out and say this was the most ferocious in...

Burnt Up Love, Finborough Theatre review - scorching new pla...

Mac is in prison for a long stretch. He is calm, contemplative almost...