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How the Brits Rocked America: Go West, BBC Four

Kieron Tyler Saturday, 28 January 2012

Before The Beatles touched down there in 1964, British pop was barely a concern for America. The first in this three-part series took The Beatles arrival as the year zero for British pop’s conquering of America. An entertaining canter through an over-familiar slice of pop history, Go West was enlivened by some top-drawer talking heads including Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page. No Rolling Stones though.

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We'll Take Manhattan, BBC Four

Kieron Tyler Friday, 27 January 2012

The Beatles’s arrival on US TV screens in February 1964 is usually recognised as the beginning of the British Invasion of America. But this drama, focusing on chippy, upstart photographer David Bailey, his relationship with his chosen model Jean Shrimpton and their first shoot in Manhattan, floated the idea that their US visit in January 1962 was as pivotal as The Fabs’s debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

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The World Against Apartheid, BBC Four

ASH Smyth Wednesday, 25 January 2012

When I opened my e-nvitation to write up last night’s The World Against Apartheid, I was not expecting it to come bedecked with GoogleAds for hen parties, roller discos, and custom-made birthday invitations (keyword: "part/y", one assumes). Only 20 years ago, any mail on this topic would’ve been stuffed with "End racism NOW!" leaflets, discount book offers by/about Basil D’Oliveira, and pop-up Peter Hains beseeching you to boycott your local fruiterers.

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First Love, Sky Arts 1

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 25 January 2012

We’ve been this way before. A few years ago the BBC screened a series called Play It Again, in which celebrities had a crack at performing on musical instruments which they had not visited in decades. Sky Arts have revisited the concept with a series called First Love, whose first six programmes went out last year and featured a usual array of celebrity suspects starring in a game of friends reunited, the musical version.

Birdsong, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Monday, 23 January 2012

Abandoned attempts to bring Sebastian Faulks's World War One novel to the movie screen stretch from Soho to Sunset Boulevard. Most of these were prepared and discarded under the auspices of Working Title Films, so perhaps it's fitting that Birdsong has finally been made by the BBC and Working Title's new television division.

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Putin, Russia and the West, BBC Two

Tom Birchenough Friday, 20 January 2012

“Who is Mr Putin?” That was the question being bandied about by journalists and Kremlin watchers in the months after Boris Yeltsin’s out-of-the-blue New Year’s Eve 1999 resignation. Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB operative in East Germany, was prominent in the St Petersburg city administration through the early 1990s; called to Moscow in 1996, he held various Kremlin jobs, before being appointed head of the FSB (the KGB’s successor) in July 1998, and in August 1999 Russia’s prime minister...

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Jonathan Meades on France, BBC Four

graeme Thomson Thursday, 19 January 2012

Jonathan Meades’s trawl through France began with the breezy theme tune from ‘Allo ‘Allo taking an unceremonious tumble from the turntable, signalling an instant war on cliché which continued with the promise of “no Piaf, no Dordogne, no ooh la la, no checked tablecloths”. The opening was quintessentially Meades – arch, parodic, iconoclastic, ever so slightly self-mocking. If Rick Stein was watching he’d have suffered a severe case of the shakes.

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Horizon: Playing God, BBC Two

howard Male Wednesday, 18 January 2012

“So you’re telling me that somewhere on this farm there’s an animal that’s part spider and part something else?” No, this isn’t a snatch of dialogue from the climax of a shlocky B-movie. These words were spoken calmly if sceptically by biologist Adam Rutherford who was our guide on last night’s Horizon.

The Story of Musicals, BBC Four

Kieron Tyler Wednesday, 18 January 2012

As the series ended, it remained at great pains to repeatedly point out that this was the story of the British musical, its post-War success and how Oliver and Jesus Christ Superstar conquered Broadway. Yet it was hard not to sigh as episode three finished with Disney and Sir Cameron Mackintosh cosying up to stage Mary Poppins, which Mackintosh had the rights to. Universal hit Britain’s stages with Wicked, as DreamWorks has with Shrek The Musical...

The One Griff Rhys Jones, BBC One

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 17 January 2012

What’s the opposite of a pilot? Griff Rhys Jones has not performed in a comedic capacity for nearly a decade and a half. When he did, he was always part of a larger company – first Not the Nine O’Clock News, then for 14 years in a partnership with Mel Smith. There must be a reason why he never struck out on his own.