tv
The Route Masters: Running London's Roads/Airport Live, BBC TwoWednesday, 19 June 2013
I bought a new car recently, but by the end of The Route Masters (***) I was feeling a powerful inclination to sell it. The film would have rung a masochistic bell with anybody accustomed to trying to travel round London on a regular basis, and the soundbite claiming that the average speed of the city's rush hour traffic is 9mph sounded like a wild exaggeration. Read more...
|
The White Queen, BBC One/Agatha Christie's Marple: Caribbean Mystery, ITVMonday, 17 June 2013
In recent times, the Middle Ages have been ghettoised on those channels you watch in pubs. Game of Thrones, and anything by Regius Professor of bunkum Ken Follett, are history laid on for people who don’t give a toss about history. You know, the snorey stuff about canon law and tithe barns. For those who prefer their medieval high jinks only semi-faked, The White Queen prances into one’s purview on a white liveried steed. Read more... |
Afghan Army Girls, More 4Sunday, 16 June 2013
Being a woman soldier in the Afghan army must rate among the world’s “least wanted” jobs, if only 14 applicants came forward for 150 places in the year’s intake covered in Afghan Army Girls. It apparently took a year’s negotiations to get a single camera allowed in to follow them over their six months' training, and even then some on the course insisted on having their faces blanked (understandable, when the Taliban threaten retaliation). Read more... |
The Secret Life of the Cat, BBC TwoFriday, 14 June 2013
It’s been quite a week for surveillance. And no, that doesn’t mean the NSA and whatever’s happening in Hong Kong. You can bet the week's viewing figures that the majority of Britain’s households, particularly those in the triple-F category – meaning, feline-focused families – will have been more preoccupied with Horizon’s investigation into what exactly goes on when that flap goes up, The Secret Life of the Cat. Read more... |
Dates, Channel 4Wednesday, 12 June 2013
The idea of writing nine 30-minute dramas (or more like 26 minutes when you take the ads out) about the thrills and calamities of first-dating might have been asking for trouble, but seems to be working out unexpectedly well so far. Read more... |
Child Genius, Channel 4/Agnetha: Abba and After, BBC OneWednesday, 12 June 2013
Nobody said it was easy being an infant prodigy. Take Hugo, ranked in the top 0.4 percent of the population. He knows everything there is to know about train engines, train stations, rail networks etc, has them committed to his photographic memory. At 10 he is, basically, on some sort of spectrum, and he knows that too. “This is my brother Oscar,” he said. “He’s a more normal child.” Read more... |
The Fall, Series Finale, BBC TwoTuesday, 11 June 2013
In the end, it was always going to come down to the last episode whether The Fall was powerful female-driven drama or, to quote another writer for theartsdesk, “misogynistic torture porn”. That conclusion, however, was as elusive as the ending of Allan Cubitt’s thriller; cunningly set up as if to strongarm BBC Two into a second series before the announcement was made. Read more... |
Precision: The Measure of All Things, BBC FourTuesday, 11 June 2013
Given the breadth of Marcus du Sautoy’s cultural scholarship, it was a small surprise that British poet Andrew Marvell wasn't name-checked at the start of the presenter’s new three-parter Precision: The Measure of All Things. “Had we but world enough and time,” the great Metaphysical wooer called to his Coy Mistress, touching directly on the subjects of episode one, “Time and Distance”. Read more... |
The Returned, Channel 4Monday, 10 June 2013
"Maybe everything that dies someday comes back," Bruce Springsteen posited in "Atlantic City". The residents of the French Alpine village at the centre of The Returned may conclude that he had a point. Read more... |
Love and Marriage, ITVThursday, 06 June 2013
They say that you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I began to grow bored with Love and Marriage about halfway through the opening credits. What seemed like endless pairs of smiling, photogenic couples swung onto the screen against a twee, brightly-coloured backdrop, and I realised I was already struggling to care. 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...
Parsifal, Glyndebourne review - the music flies up, the dram...
There’s a grail, but it doesn't glow in a mundane if perverted Christian ritual. Three of the main characters have young and old actor versions...
The Bombing of Pan Am 103, BBC One review - new dramatisatio...
The appalling destruction of Pan Am’s flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 was put under the spotlight in January this year in Sky Atlantic’s ...
Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries
“Tell me what you see” invites Robert Forster during “Tell it Back to me.” The album’s eight songs do not, however, necessarily say what Forster...
Music Reissues Weekly: Chapterhouse - White House Demos
Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on...
Songlines Encounters, Kings Place review - West African and...
Songlines Encounters is your round-the-world ticket to great...
The Deep Blue Sea, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - Tamsin G...
The water proves newly inviting in The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Rattigan's mournful 1952 play that some while ago established its status as...
Magic Farm review - numpties from the Nineties
There’s nothing more healthy than dissing your own dad, and filmmaker Amalia Ulman says that her old man was “a Gen X deadbeat edgelord skater”...
The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into...
As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on...