tv
Gilbert O’Sullivan: Out on His Own, BBC FourFriday, 26 August 2011
While obviously not as seismic a Top of the Pops moment as Ziggy singing “Starman”, the almost contemporaneous appearance of the flat-capped Gilbert O’Sullivan hunched over his piano as if it were a dying coal fire certainly stuck in my memory as clearly as Bowie’s androgynous space-age carrot-top. Although the flat cap was quickly ditched in favour of casual knitwear and even a hairy chest phase (see pic below), today’s 64-year-... Read more...
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Too Much, Too Young: Children of the Middle Ages, BBC FourThursday, 25 August 2011
Although billed as “a fresh look at the Middle Ages through the eyes of children”, presenter Dr Stephen Baxter had to admit the bulk of historic evidence for how medieval children lived their lives was written by adults. Unfiltered accounts from a child’s perspective are rare. Poring over the 1086 Domesday Book, the census of who, what and where, he noted that children aren’t mentioned. Evoking the barely known is a hard log to roll, and this frustrating programme barely nudged it... Read more... |
The Hour, Series Finale, BBC TwoTuesday, 23 August 2011
Part of the fun of watching The Hour, in the absence of a coherent plot, convincing characters and plausible period dialogue, was ruminating on the myriad different ways it could be sliced: a grown-up Press Gang meets Mad Men? The Spy Who Came in From the Cold versus Spooks? All the President’s Men crossbred with Foyle’s War? Read more... |
Horizon: The Nine Months That Made You, BBC TwoTuesday, 23 August 2011
This was the sort of science programme that an interested non-science person like me finds immensely irritating. It began with a series of statements which were, in fact, meaningless overstatements. Not only this, but these overblown statements tripped each other up: “Scientists think they’ve discovered the secrets of a healthy, happy, long life – for all of us” (don’t you just hate this kind of teasing nonsense that treats us all either like fools or Daily Mail readers?) was... Read more... |
The Man Who Crossed Hitler, BBC TwoSunday, 21 August 2011
Out of the blue, in the middle of the midsummer slump, came this unusual and original one-off play (I say "play" because it would convert naturally to the stage). Finding a new angle from which to explore Hitler and the Nazis might seem impossible, since few subjects have had their bones picked clean more obsessively. A keg of schnapps, then, to writer Mark Hayhurst, who successfully pulled this one out of his hat. Read more... |
Anyone for Demis? How the World Invaded the Charts, BBC FourFriday, 19 August 2011
"Anyone for Demis?" wasn’t the only question posed by this trawl through some of the foreign – not American - popular music that’s been hugged to our collective bosom. That the large, hirsute, kaftan-shrouded Greek wonder that’s Demis Roussos was popular is obvious. He landed in the Top 10 in 1975 with “Happy to be on an Island in the Sun” and became a chart regular for the next two years. Everyone was for Demis. The other poser was the self-cancelling, “Now that pop music’s gone global, has... Read more... |
Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 5Friday, 19 August 2011
There were rumours – on Twitter, naturally – that Charlie Sheen was going into the House. But, alas, these were unfounded, and he didn’t. Maybe even Sheen has to draw the line somewhere. Read more... |
The Pendle Witch Child, BBC FourWednesday, 17 August 2011
A nine-year-old girl testifies in court. She’s clear, precise and damning. The case revolves around her testimony alone. All the accused – 10 of them, her family and neighbours - are declared guilty and executed. The girl is the only one of the family left alive. Thirty-two years later, the girl faces the same charges. Tried, she’s found guilty but the case goes to appeal. The girl was Jennet Device and the charge was witchcraft. Read more... |
Graffiti Wars, Channel 4Sunday, 14 August 2011
Before Banksy's work became the object of desire for champagne-sipping, canapé-snaffling hedge fund managers at auction houses' private views, there was something of the curled lip about street art. Indeed, for years it wasn't known as street art but graffiti - the painted defacement of walls. London in the Noughties saw the evolution of that view: there could be a legitimate artistic value of this sort of work. However, not all graffiti qualified - much was still mindless vandalism. Read more... |
The Borgias, Sky AtlanticSaturday, 13 August 2011
The pre-publicity has been spinning this saga of the notorious Renaissance family as a kind of origin story for The Sopranos. I suppose you could argue that Rodrigo Borgia, like Tony Soprano, was in the waste management business, as he himself suggested when he took the Papal throne as Alexander VI: "God has chosen us as a new broom to sweep the Vatican clean of corruption." Read more... |
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