tv
Howzat! Kerry Packer's War, BBC FourTuesday, 09 July 2013
Back in the Eighties, Australian TV brought us Bodyline, retelling (with some extravagant exaggeration) how Douglas Jardine's 1932 England side caused an international rumpus by zapping Australia with "leg theory" bowling. Even more seismic for the somnolent world of international cricket was Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket of the 1970s, whose story is reconstructed in this two-part drama from Australia's Nine Network (itself a part of the Packer empire). Read more... |
The Men's Singles Final, BBC OneSunday, 07 July 2013
It’s taken many years. Most thought they’d never see the day dawn. But this afternoon, the planets were in alignment, the winds were blowing in the right direction, and the obdurate muscle-clad star of many an epic with a face hewn from Scottish granite, famed around the globe for keeping its array of expressions to the barest minimum, was seen to crack into a series of girly gigawatt smiles. Read more... |
Scandal, More4Friday, 05 July 2013
You've got a political scandal, so who ya gonna call? It had better be Olivia Pope, whose company Pope & Associates specialises in protecting the image and interest of the power-elite, frequently (though not exclusively) within the Washington DC Beltway. Read more... |
Horizon: What Makes Us Human?, BBC TwoThursday, 04 July 2013
Teamwork, as the song once said, makes the dream work. Homo sapiens knows this, if not quite by nature, then at least by nurture. Turns out that there are some chimpanzees in Leipzig which are all over the team thing too. Offered the chance to pull together on a simple mechanism to retrieve a nut – one each – two chimps will work in tandem to make it happen. Read more... |
Luther, Series 3, BBC OneWednesday, 03 July 2013
The ancients teach us that after hubris comes nemesis, and Luther's writer/creator Neil Cross has taken the lesson to heart. The big question hanging over this third series is, can the bullish DCI John Luther continue to hunt villains in his own headstrong, politically-incorrect fashion, or will he be brought down by snarling Detective Super George Stark, a bitter and vengeful man hauled out of retirement to bring Luther his come-uppance? Read more... |
Phil Spector, Sky AtlanticSunday, 30 June 2013
David Mamet has composed a love letter to Phil Spector. It may not be the most mellifluous ever written, and its tone may occasionally jar, but that’s what this fictional film, which he also directs and which stars Al Pacino as the bewigged legendary music producer, effectively is. Read more... |
Who Were the Greeks?, BBC Two/Eye Spy, Channel 4Friday, 28 June 2013
When television goes off exploring classical civilisation, you can hear those lines from The Life of Brian chiming in your head. “Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?” Such has been the glut of Roman TV in recent times that no couch potato is in any further doubt. The Romans have kept the plebs royally entertained. Read more... |
In Praise of Glastonbury: Julien Temple's After HoursTuesday, 25 June 2013
Many of my friends find the entire idea of festivals abhorrent. It’s not that they’re on some appalled-of-Purley Daily Mail campaign to put a stop to them, just that the idea of staying under canvas for a few days in a field full of noisiness is their idea of Hell. Especially if the weather is inclement. Read more... |
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition 2013 Final, BBC FourMonday, 24 June 2013
Once in a blue moon, the judges would seem to have got it wrong. I can think only of 2001, when stunning Latvian mezzo Elina Garanča failed to win the coveted goblet but has since gone on to deserved fame as one of the top half-dozen singers on the international stage today. Read more... |
Quick Cuts, BBC FourThursday, 20 June 2013
You may have thought BBC sitcoms had sunk to the depths with Ben Elton's The Wright Way, but Quick Cuts is giving it a run for its money. The opening episode of a three-part series started last night and, while I'm not a betting woman, I'll vouchsafe Quick Cuts won't get a full run. Or should it do so, I may have to ask for my licence fee back. Read more... |
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