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Great Houses With Julian Fellowes, ITV1Wednesday, 23 January 2013
It was surely a no-brainer for ITV to produce a series about grand houses presented by Julian Fellowes with stories about those who lived and worked in them. But while it may sound wholly derivative to many, at least Fellowes - unlike a raft of celebrities presenting television programmes these days - has the wherewithal. Read more... |
Call The Midwife, Series Two, BBC OneMonday, 21 January 2013
I somehow avoided the period medical drama phenomenon that Call the Midwife became in its first series until the Christmas special. As befits the holiday season its storyline was trite, focusing on a teenage mother who miraculously managed to single-handedly give birth in a cupboard with no mess and little fuss. Read more... |
Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy, BBC FourSaturday, 19 January 2013
Although there was no shortage of interview clips with Glen Campbell [who has died at the age of 81] in this fine overview of his career, the tragedy was that archives were so heavily drawn on. Tragic because pop-country stylist Campbell has Alzheimer’s and is limited in what he can contribute. Read more... |
Utopia, Channel 4Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Read theartsdesk's review of the final episode of Utopia Read more... |
My Mad Fat Diary, E4Tuesday, 15 January 2013
About the only thing I dislike about My Mad Fat Diary is the title. Based on a similarly-titled teenage memoir by the writer Rae Earl, the first episode of this six-part comedy drama is touching, hilarious and perfectly cast. And the lead character, who introduces herself as a “16-stone 16-year-old”, has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital after four months of in-patient treatment, so it’s certainly apt. Read more... |
World Without End, Channel 4/Blandings, BBC OneMonday, 14 January 2013
Recipe for Follett Without Finish, a popular broth. Ingredients as follows. One History of Medieval England. One crown, preferably tarnished. Axes, in abundance. Similar quantities of sword. Drawerful of knives. Much rope. A couple of dozen pieces of timber (human). Some French accents. One patch of Hungary. Goodly supply of Saturday night primetime. Read more... |
Great Night Out, ITV1Saturday, 12 January 2013
Judging by those associated with Great Night Out, it looked like ITV had found the successor to acclaimed thirtysomething drama Cold Feet. It has the same production team behind The Worst Week of My Life - one of the funniest programmes in BBC Comedy's recent output - additional material by playwright Jonathan Harvey, who is responsible for some punchily witty scripts in Coronation Street, and a cast of talented actors. Read more... |
Spies of Warsaw, BBC FourThursday, 10 January 2013
It’s rare for a wartime drama not to hide behind an elliptic or poetic title. Spies of Warsaw - a two-part adaptation of Alan Furst’s 2008 novel of the same name - misses out on a place in the canon by a couple of years, but the looming Second World War provides the backdrop to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais’ stylish, atmospheric thriller. Read more... |
The Riviera: A History in Pictures, BBC FourWednesday, 09 January 2013
For a man immortalised by his wails of rainy misery from the moors of Withnail and I, you would expect Richard E Grant to be very happy on the Riviera. He is, with the suave aristo manner of the Englishman abroad. Which is fitting for The Riviera: A History in Pictures, because the Riviera practically belonged to the Brits - we hivernots, winter escapers from northern cold - before the French realised it was there at all. Read more... |
Mr Selfridge, ITV1Monday, 07 January 2013
Welcome to the marble halls of Mr Selfridge. All the world, in ITV’s new costumer (in every sense), isn’t a stage - it’s a shop. And bestriding his eponymous Oxford Street emporium, which we saw in this first episode in the run-up to its 1909 grand opening, like a colossus is Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge, the American who came from his native Chicago to open the world’s finest department store of its time. Read more... |
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