tv
My Dream Farm, Channel 4Thursday, 21 January 2010
Monty Don’s Fork to Fork is probably my desert island gardening book, while Don’s weekly articles in the Observer magazine are still sorely missed years after they last appeared. He is a marvellous writer, poetic and evangelical - although I’ve never been as enamoured of him as a TV presenter. The same goes for Don’s friend, Nigel Slater, whom I prefer in print than on television. I find their authorial voices more beguiling than their broadcasting ones. Read more... |
Shooting the War, BBC FourThursday, 21 January 2010
It started ten years ago with The Second World War in Colour, continued with The First World War in Colour and Britain at War in Colour. You didn’t half get the picture. In series after absorbing series, the foreign country that is the monochrome past came closer. Colour footage flushed some pink into its cheeks. Grey flowered into khaki. Now here comes another war effort. Shooting the War tells the story of 1939-1945 from the bottom up. In part one, entitled... Read more... |
Popstar to Operastar, ITV1Saturday, 16 January 2010
Naturally it would be impossible to reach an objective verdict on what is the worst programme ever shown on television, but it is at least safe to say that Popstar To Operastar is determined not to get left behind in the race to the bottom. This could also be said of some of its contestants, whose unfamiliarity with the concept of "singing" seemed surprising in people who perform music for a living, albeit of the non-operatic kind. Read more... |
By The People - The Election of Barack Obama, BBC Two / Simon Schama on Obama's America, BBC TwoWednesday, 13 January 2010
Saturday evening's By The People - The Election of Barack Obama helpfully illustrated some timeless truths about the art of documentary film-making. Its co-authors, Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, had spent two years enjoying priceless backstage access to Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, first as he saw off Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and then during the Presidential campaign itself. Read more... |
Paul Merton in Europe, FiveTuesday, 12 January 2010
On Have I Got News for You, the world viewed through Paul Merton’s eyes is not quite as others see it. He makes the random connections of the lateral thinker, thinks jaggedly round corners, and competes manically to have the last word, the last laugh. He also likes you to know that he knows stuff. Last night Paul Merton went to Germany to make a documentary. He’d never been before. Read more... |
The Conspiracy Files: Osama Bin Laden - Dead or Alive? BBC TwoSunday, 10 January 2010
If Gordon Brown had slipped and fallen on the ice this weekend you could have expected at least a dozen conspiracy theories to have emerged on the internet. Why was David Miliband spotted studying a weather map the night before? Why had the PM’s aides suggested that particular pavement? And who controls the gritting lorries anyway? Read more... |
Horizon - The Secret Life of the Dog, BBC TwoThursday, 07 January 2010
For Horizon's fascinating investigation into the ancestral relationship between man and dog, a record-breaking number of illustrious boffins had been compressed into 60 minutes of television. We met Dr Anna Kukekova from Cornell University, who has been conducting research into which gene makes silver foxes (dogs by any other name) either tame or wild. Read more... |
The Trials of Amanda Knox, More4Wednesday, 06 January 2010
Perception was everything last night in Garfield Kennedy’s fascinating if, at times, frustrating documentary, The Trials of Amanda Knox. Was the American student who was convicted last month of murdering her British flatmate in Perugia, Meredith Kercher, a scheming hussy into (very) extreme sex games, or just an averagely adventurous twentysomething turned into a scapegoat by an Italian judiciary that had already convinced itself of her guilt? Kennedy’s film considered the evidence... Read more... |
Nurse Jackie, BBC TwoMonday, 04 January 2010
The first episode of a new series is always a minefield. How do you introduce the main protagonists, set the scene, hint at what you hope will be the show's long and brilliant future and still cram in enough storyline to keep viewers watching until the end? In this regard, perhaps Nurse Jackie was assisted by its brief 30-minute slot (of which the actual show only filled about 26), since this left no alternative but to focus and trim ruthlessly. Read more... |
The Turn of the Screw, BBC One / Sleep with Me, ITV1Friday, 01 January 2010
Television doesn’t do eroticism at all well. Perhaps, rather like a truly horrifying horror film being unwatchable, a properly erotic drama would never pass TV’s internal censors. Dennis Potter tried it with his 1989 love letter to Gina Bellman, Blackeyes, but ended up dubbed “Dirty Den” for his troubles. And what is erotic anyway – just a glimpse of stocking, or the full-on and (for me, anyway) embarrassing sight of Billie Piper in fishnets and suspender belt? Read more... |
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