tv
Restless, BBC OneSaturday, 29 December 2012
William Boyd wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of his 2006 espionage novel, and since it’s integral to the whole he retained its two-part structure. The first concerns the World War II activities of former British intelligence spy Eva Delectorskaya, the second, set in 1976, concerns her efforts to lay the past to rest. Not only has the past cast a dark shadow over her life but it continues to endanger it. For this she enlists the help of her daughter. Read more...
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Panto!, ITV1Thursday, 27 December 2012
Pantomime is one of the great festive traditions and the version of Dick Whittington envisaged by John Bishop in this one-off comedy drama checked off every single one of the clichés. Taking a writer’s credit alongside Jonathan Harvey of Gimme Gimme Gimme fame, the Liverpool comic drew on his experiences on regional stages near the beginning of his showbiz career in pulling together the script. Read more... |
The Girl, BBC Two / Miranda, BBC OneThursday, 27 December 2012
The BBC makes a habit of dramatising the difficult lives of those who have entertained us – tortured comedians, anguished singers, even troubled cooks. Whatever you make of their merits, the message accumulating across all these biodramas is that the audience’s pleasure comes at the cost of the artist’s pain. Or as Alfred Hitchcock put it in The Girl, “Who pays our wages? The audience.” Read more... |
Downton Abbey, Series 3 Christmas Special, ITV1Wednesday, 26 December 2012
I was going to make a strenuous effort not to give away the ending, but since it's all over the front pages of the newspapers there's not much point. This rambling Downton special spent two hours going nowhere in particular, albeit very charmingly, but Julian Fellowes had been keeping his knuckledusters hidden behind his back. In the closing few minutes, he gave us the new heir of Downton and got rid of the previous one, the much-loved Matthew Crawley. Read more... |
Call The Midwife Christmas Special, BBC OneWednesday, 26 December 2012
You have to wonder whether blood, squalor, flea infestations, DIY childbirth and urine-soaked tenements are really the perfect family viewing elixir for 7.30pm on Christmas Day, but the BBC has obviously decided that it's good for us. Or, considering that the ornate and crenellated shadow of Downton looms so large over the festivities, maybe they felt they had no choice but to deploy the Midwife weapon, the Beeb's biggest drama hit in a decade. Read more... |
The Snowman and the Snowdog, Channel 4Tuesday, 25 December 2012
Over the past 29 years, annual screenings of the TV adaptation of Raymond Briggs's 1978 picture book The Snowman have become an integral part of Christmas. Now, on the 30th anniversary of its first broadcast, the original has friendly competition from The Snowman and the Snowdog, a new animation featuring the be-hatted, smiling fellow. Read more... |
Loving Miss Hatto, BBC One/ Homeland, Series 2 Finale, Channel 4Sunday, 23 December 2012
Joyce Hatto achieved a rare kind of immortality for being the pianist at the centre of an audacious classical music fraud, in which her husband faked "Joyce Hatto" CDs from the work of other artists and, for a time, enjoyed considerable success with them. The Hatto goose was cooked when the Gracenote music database used by iTunes detected that one of her albums was not her work at all. A couple of novels based on Hatto-like events have already appeared, but for this TV treatment... Read more... |
Michael Grade's History of the Pantomime Dame, BBC FourFriday, 21 December 2012
There's nothing like a dame, as any panto fan knows. Read more... |
The Town, ITV1Thursday, 20 December 2012
Plaudits to ITV for their recent campaign of new drama, even if the results have been patchy. The best ones have been well worth persevering with, and The Bletchley Circle and Tony Marchant's Leaving have wedged themselves most firmly in the mind. Read more... |
The Christmas No 1 Story, BBC TwoThursday, 20 December 2012
Of all the festive institutions, the Christmas No 1 holds a special place in my heart. I was one of those kids who, over the month of December, would carefully plot which CD single I’d be pledging my allegiance to (usually not the ultimate winner, apart from that one year Gary Jules’s cover of “Mad World”, from the Donnie Darko soundtrack, fluked it). Read more... |
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