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True Stories - Vote Afghanistan! More4Tuesday, 27 April 2010
One can only speculate about why More4 would want to broadcast a documentary about bare-faced electoral fraud in the week before the climax of our own unimpeachably democratic process. However, this rather long film about 2009's Afghan presidential election gradually marshalled its arguments into a pointed critique of how the “democracy” which the West has unloaded over Afghanistan like a badly aimed air strike is anything but. Read more... |
La La Land, BBC ThreeTuesday, 27 April 2010
“Marc Wootton is playing characters in real situations with real people” read the message that followed the opening credits of La La Land, as though Wootton were a comedic Archimedes unveiling his Eureka moment, rather than simply the latest “provocative” British wit to go panning for comedy gold in the murky waters of American embarrassment. Read more... |
Five Daughters, BBC OneMonday, 26 April 2010
Five Daughters is “based on the personal testimony of those most closely involved”: family, friends, the last people to see the women alive. What we are watching - the story of the murder of five sex workers in Ipswich - has the stamp of truth. When one girl missed her appointment at the methadone clinic, her mother tried to collect her prescription for her. Read more... |
Malcolm McLaren: Artful Dodger, BBC TwoSunday, 25 April 2010
Several contributors alluded to this quality – he loved stories, was caught up in the drama of pirates and swashbuckling heroes (as Adam Ant used to his advantage when he hired Malcolm “for a thousand guineas” as an advisor. Malcolm then went off with his backing band and renamed them Bow Wow Wow). |
Greatest Cities of the World, ITV1Friday, 23 April 2010
You always know where you are with Griff. You may be up a mountain or on a river or visiting any of the various topographical options the various TV companies deem it essential to send him. You may be doing up his house with him in Wales, where he freely admits he doesn’t really come from, or nosing round London, Paris or New York, as he did in the last series of Greatest Cities of the World. You may, as with the new series, be in Rome. But in the end, you never leave the Land of Griff. Read more... |
Leaders' Debate, Sky NewsThursday, 22 April 2010
It's difficult to reach a rational verdict in the midst of the blog-barrage, Twitter-frenzy and crass party point-scoring that surround our new national pastime, but as the party leaders neared the 90-minute time limit, it was at least obvious that this second debate had brought feistier and more committed performances from all three of them. David Cameron and Gordon Brown wasted no time in demonstrating how well they'd learned Nick Clegg's trick of looking straight into the camera and... Read more... |
White Collar, BravoWednesday, 21 April 2010
The opening episode of a new series is always an awkward blighter. You have to introduce the characters and establish the required tone, while squeezing in enough plot to keep the thing moving. Even mega-budget epics like FlashForward have struggled to make it work. Read more... |
The Prisoner, ITV1Sunday, 18 April 2010
"The ultimate battle! Jesus versus Magneto!" raved one sci-fi blogger (ironically), on seeing that this Anglo-American remake of The Prisoner stars Jim The Passion of the Christ Caviezel and Sir Ian X-Men McKellen. If only. Read more... |
The First Election Debate, ITV1Thursday, 15 April 2010
The way the pundits were jumping up and down hailing a historic night in British politics, you'd think nobody had ever seen Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Gordon Brown on TV before. This, we were told, could be a historic 90 minutes that would transform our nation's political discourse. "The leaders' debate will be a direct confrontation with the voters that could change the election", according to a man wearing glasses in The Times. Read more... |
Outnumbered, BBC OneThursday, 15 April 2010
When it first aired in 2007, Outnumbered finally allowed viewers to see children on television really being children (hitting each other, lying, being naturally witty, shouting “Dad attacked that lady” in public), while ruthlessly exploiting the child’s unerring ability to say aloud what we’re really thinking, whether it's about terrorism (“What other religions have blown up planes, Mummy?”) or other cultural hot potatoes. Read more... |
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