tue 29/07/2025

tv

How God Made the English, BBC Two

Fisun Güner

This programme wants to challenge certain stereotypes around English identity. It wants to challenge the notion that to be English is to be “tolerant, white and Anglo-Saxon”. But before it does any of that, it wants to address just one question, and that is this: just why are the English so damned full of themselves? That’s right. Just where does their sense of superiority and entitlement come from?

Read more...

Reverse Missionaries, BBC Two

graeme Thomson

Despite an unfortunate title which seemed to have fallen from the pages of the latest Cosmo sex survey (“add some spice to the bedroom: try reverse missionary”), the first instalment of this three-part series about faith, community and religious history had honourable intentions.

Read more...

Love Life, ITV1

Emma Dibdin

Following ITV’s resounding victory in the battle of the masters ‘n’ servants period shows – Downton Abbey vs. Upstairs Downstairs, for the uninitiated – the Beeb are overdue for a retaliatory blow. And so the gauntlet has been thrown down, in the unlikely form of what might be the very blandest title ever conceived of for a romantic drama.

Read more...

Horizon: Out of Control?, BBC Two

Fisun Güner

You know that kind of smoothly seductive but nonetheless ominous-sounding voice-over that loads of science programmes seem to love? You know, the kind that’s often used to lull us into thinking that what we’re about to hear is going to present us with some really seismic shift in our perceptions? Well, that’s what gets me about some science programmes. That, and the sense that the more dramatic the voice-over the less dramatic the content. That, and the graphics.

Read more...

Alcatraz, Watch

Kieron Tyler

Contrary to what he said in 1963, US Attorney General Robert Kennedy did not close Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Although the last inmate appeared to leave the San Francisco Bay island fortress in leg-irons on 21 March 1963, the prisoners and guards had vanished into thin air, leaving it the Marie Celeste of prisons. The cover-up worked. But now, one-by-one, without having aged, the prisoners are back, blazing a trial of murderous mayhem across modern-day San Francisco.

Read more...

Scott & Bailey, Series 2, ITV1

Veronica Lee

There are any number of television detective shows and to differentiate themselves they all need a USP. The excellent Sherlock is a very knowing modern reworking of the original, Life on Mars was set in a time warp, Dirk Gently uses weird global interconnectivity and Whitechapel's coppers solve crimes by referencing Victorian cases. So a cop show that has none of the bells and whistles of the above is somewhat unique.

Read more...

My Phone Sex Secrets, Channel 4

Jasper Rees

In the right hands, the English language can work itself up into an intensely erotic lather. It can seduce and caress, tease and undress. It can perform tantric wonders, all through the power of the word. In the right hands. “You ain’t got yer knob out already?” said Jenny, on the blower to a gentleman while redecorating her kitchen. “Listen to how wet I am.” And she dipped her brush in a sloppy tub of Dulux.

Read more...

White Heat, BBC Two

Emma Dibdin

Everything that’s best about the opening episode of Paula Milne’s White Heat, a decade-straddling saga of seven friends who begin as flatmates in 1960s London, is encapsulated in its Hartley-quoting title, The Past Is a Foreign Country.

Read more...

The Sarah Millican Television Programme, BBC Two

Veronica Lee

There comes a point in every successful stand-up's career when television executives start calling. First it's appearances on panel and quiz shows, then a solo programme that showcases their live talents - but what then? Not everyone is a Graham Norton or a Dara Ó Bríain - both instant hits in whatever format TV can throw at them - so producers keep trying to invent a twist on well-tried formats when they shepherd a new star into the spotlight.

Read more...

She Wolves: England's Early Queens, BBC Four

Kieron Tyler

“Throughout our history, women and power have made an uneasy combination." Dr Helen Castor made it clear the path to power depended on more than the right alliances, lineage, and marriage partner. Even if all those were spot on, being female was enough to halt any rise. The series began with the medieval Queens Matilda and her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine. Both wanted to rule, not reign like Queen Elizabeth II.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2025 - Arvo Pärt at...

Life-changing? That's how the Pärnu Music Festival felt on my first visit in 2015, alongside the discovery of...

The Winter's Tale, RSC, Stratford review - problem play...

There’s a deal to be made when taking your seat for The Winter’s Tale. It’s one the title alone would have...

Brixton Calling, Southwark Playhouse review - life-affirming...

What a delight it is to see the director, the star, even the marketing manager these days FFS, get out of the way and let a really...

BBC Proms: Batsashvili, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rya...

This Prom began in sombre and melancholic shades of grey. Then...

Inter Alia, National Theatre review - dazzling performance,...

Rosamund Pike is back. For her first stage appearance since 2010, when she played Hedda Gabler in Adrian Noble’s production for Bath Theatre Royal...

The Waterfront, Netflix review - fish, drugs and rock'n...

You wouldn’t really want to belong to the Buckley family, a star-crossed dynasty who run their fishing business out of Havenport,...

Album: Debby Friday - The Starrr of the Queen of Life

Debby Friday is a Nigerian-Canadian singer-producer who found...

The Fantastic Four: First Steps review - innocence regained

Marvel goes back to its origins, gulping the fresh air of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s first hit comic The Fantastic Four in 1961. Ignoring...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Pale Fountains - The Complete Vir...

The Pale Fountains played their first live show on 12 February 1980 as the support to on-the-up fellow...