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Ego: The Strange and Wonderful World of Self-Portraits, BBC FourFriday, 05 November 2010
Albrecht Dürer painted himself as Jesus (pictured below). Luckily, he was blessed with the looks, the hair and the initials – echoing the geometry of his golden locks the A straddles the D in his inscribed paintings. And when this German messiah of painting died, his beguiling 1500 self-portrait – one of the most hypnotic ever painted in the history of Western art – was carried through the streets of Nuremburg, his birthplace: celebrated during his life, upon his death Dürer... Read more... |
The Trip, BBC TwoTuesday, 02 November 2010
There’s an interesting back story to The Trip. Before Rob Brydon was “discovered” by Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company in 2000, he was a workaday comic and Coogan was then at the height of his Alan Partridge-induced success. Read more... |
The Little House, ITV1Tuesday, 02 November 2010
I realise actors must be prepared to suffer for their art, but it was truly heroic of Francesca Annis to allow herself to be made up to resemble Cherie Blair after a bout of electro-convulsive therapy compounded by a facelift by Dr Mengele. In The Little House, Annis plays Elizabeth, the cold and controlling mother of Patrick (Rupert Evans, formerly King Richard IV in the hilarious royal soap The Palace). Read more... |
Keith Richards: A Culture Show Special, BBC TwoThursday, 28 October 2010
“I was a very good soprano.” Of all the sentences you’d not expect to hear tumbling from the mouth of Keith Richards, that one is up there with "Tap water for me, please, and I do hope this vegan restaurant is non-smoking." He has the addled larynx of a Fag Ash Lil who, when not mopping and dusting, perches on a barstool glugging gin and puffing on Bensons. But once upon a time little Richards did once sing for the Queen. Read more... |
Agatha Christie's Poirot: Hallowe'en Party, ITV1Thursday, 28 October 2010
David Suchet has been perfecting his impersonation of Hercule Poirot for more than 20 years, perhaps sympathising with Tina Turner’s maxim, “The longer I do it, the better it gets.” The way Suchet keeps finding new little tics and eccentricities to keep the character fresh is a substantial feat, since around him, the fixtures and fittings of Agatha Christie-land have proved impregnable to change. Read more... |
Getting On, BBC FourTuesday, 26 October 2010
When Getting On, a wonderfully lo-fi and dark sitcom, debuted last year, it had a run of just three episodes, which possibly reflected the BBC’s lack of faith in audiences being able to appreciate a programme rich in subtlety in its writing, acting and direction. But thankfully the Corporation has seen the light and the medical comedy now returns with a six-part run, and is as brilliantly observed and laugh-out-loud funny as ever. Read more... |
The Pillars of the Earth, Channel 4Sunday, 24 October 2010
It’s taken 20 years for Ken Follett’s doorstopping saga to storm the little screen in the corner of the room. According to Rufus Sewell, playing a stonemason who knows about these things, it takes only 15 to knock up a spanking new Gothic cathedral complete with the latest in flying buttresses. Not that it would be fair to compare The Pillars of the Earth with the pillars of any of the great churches erected in England in the period under observation here. Read more... |
The Event, Channel 4Saturday, 23 October 2010
Don’t you hate it when you have weeks like the ones poor Sean Walker, played by mini-Tom Cruise Jason Ritter, has been having? You go on a relaxing Caribbean cruise with your bride-to-be Leila (Sarah Roemer), you get friendly with another couple, then find out they're part of a huge conspiracy and have just kidnapped your fiancée. Then you discover that any trace of your presence on the cruise ship has been erased. Read more... |
Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women, BBC FourThursday, 21 October 2010
The recurrent image in this somewhat staid documentary is a monochrome photograph of Poe’s moon of a face with its panda-like eye sockets. Occasionally the camera moves in for a close-up on those eyes - perhaps hoping they’ll reveal something that mere biographical detail doesn’t - but appropriately enough the grim Gothic writer’s eyes are more black holes than windows on the soul, and they give nothing away. The horrors, scandals and tragedies of Poe’s life had to be exhumed from his words... Read more... |
The First Men in the Moon, BBC FourWednesday, 20 October 2010
Obviously the world has decided it needs Mark Gatiss, and it keeps finding things for him to do. An influential figure in the latterday revival of Doctor Who, as well as co-creator of the BBC's recent Sherlock, Gatiss's forte is turning out to be whimsical old-fashioned adventure stories, perhaps overlaid with a patina of science fiction. Read more... |
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