sun 27/07/2025

tv

Perspectives: Robson Green and the Pitmen Painters, ITV1

Adam Sweeting

The story of the Pitmen Painters, a group of Northumbrian miners who decided to study art appreciation in their spare time and developed into a group of untrained but powerfully expressive artists, has been documented in a book by William Feaver and a play by Lee Hall. Robson Green's particular interest in the story stems from the fact that he's a miner's son, brought up in Dudley, a few miles south of the pitmen's hometown of Ashington.

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The Shadow Line, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Poker face: In 'The Shadow Line' Christopher Eccleston plays a fruit’n’veg’n’smack dealer

It’s got more derivations than a dictionary. The Wire has been mentioned in dispatches, as have British conspiracy dramas such as State of Play and Edge of Darkness (in which something is rotten etc). And talking of Denmark, it comes along with The Killing obsessives doing cold turkey. Even its creator has cited the guiding hand of cynical, labyrinthine Seventies crime thrillers – Flight of the Condor and The Parallax View. Put them...

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Inside the Human Body, BBC One

Fisun Güner Michael Mosley tells the story of human conception and development, aided by some impressive visuals

Dr Michael Mosley has been involved in some pretty hair-raising stunts in the course of filming various biology strands for the BBC. So, I imagine he might have felt something like relief filming his new series Inside the Human Body. With neither potholing nor bungee jumping, nor tearing down a steep hill in a giant, transparent ball in the offing, the only terrifying thing the engaging presenter was required to do, at least for this opening episode of a four-parter, was to hold...

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Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, BBC Two

Veronica Lee

One of the great pleasures of being a critic is watching a career develop, and Stewart Lee’s is one that I’ve had the pleasure of, so to speak, for many years.

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Exile, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Unreliable memories: John Simm as Tom (left), Jim Broadbent as Sam

In a week unfeasibly packed with new drama across the BBC and ITV, the three-part Exile may prove to be the one that lingers longest. It was a thriller and a detective story, but what gave it its formidable grip was the way the central mystery was intricately entwined with the painful personal story of  Tom Ronstadt (John Simm) and his father Sam (Jim Broadbent).

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Vera, ITV1

Adam Sweeting

ITV1 really, really loves that succulent two-hour slot in the middle of Sunday evening, and anything that goes in there has the legacy of Morse, Lewis, Frost, Miss Marple et al to live up to. The latest cunning plan for Detective Sunday is to recruit the rather excellent Brenda Blethyn to play DCI Vera Stanhope in adaptations of Ann Cleeves's novels, set in the author'...

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The Royal Wedding, All Channels

Adam Sweeting

The flying Twitter fragments said more about The Wedding than the battalions of experts, "palace insiders", historians and friends ever could (couldn't somebody have put a bag over Simon "infinite loop" Schama's head and had him bundled away from the BBC studio in the boot of a car?) Everybody seemed to adore Kate's dress. Some suggested that princesses Eugenie and Beatrice were in drag. "The Royal Family is BACK", tweeted Piers Morgan.

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – The True Story, BBC Four

howard Male

“There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…” A wish became a mantra and then became a happy ending, when Dorothy wiggled her ruby-red shoes in the MGM movie version of L Frank Baum’s fairy story. But this documentary didn’t even get to the most watched film in the history of cinema until its closing 10 minutes: perhaps because its makers were concerned that if they’d called it “The Story of L Frank Baum” it wouldn’t have found an audience.

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Giles and Sue's Royal Wedding, BBC Two

Josh Spero

There is little rational explanation for why Giles Coren and Sue Perkins are still on the television, other than that the trained ferrets have still not yet been found. They brought their inimitable, emetic style to royal weddings with last night's Giles and Sue's Royal Wedding on BBC Two. Were one forgiving (very forgiving), you could call their shtick - making every obvious joke going, hamming up their historical situations - ironic.

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United, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting

As the makers of The Kennedys discovered recently, turning history into TV drama can be like locking yourself in the stocks and inviting all-comers to hurl coconuts at your head. This dramatisation of the 1950s Manchester United team and its traumatic near-destruction in the 1958 Munich air disaster has been duly lambasted by Sandy Busby, the son of former Manchester United manager Matt Busby, and others who were affected by the real-life events.

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