tv
The True Story: The Exorcist, 5Wednesday, 16 December 2009
The recent low-budget hit Paranormal Activity has been laughably hailed by delusional critics as “the most frightening movie ever made”, but it barely scrapes the foothills of the hair-raising ghastliness depicted in The Exorcist. William Friedkin’s demonic-possession shocker was released in 1973, but even today you wouldn’t want to watch it... Read more... |
Imagine: Placido Domingo - The Time of My Life, BBC OneTuesday, 15 December 2009
How old Placido Domingo? Old Placido Domingo in not bad vocal health, to paraphrase Cary Grant's celebrated telegram reply. The other answer depends on your source of reference. Domingo is 68 in the eyes of last night's rather lazy, over-reverent Imagine, but 75 according to my not so New Everyman Dictionary of Music. Where did that come from? Read more... |
Out of My Depth, ITV1Monday, 14 December 2009
It’s what any woman dreams of. You’re in the throes of childbirth, contorted by spasms of medieval-style agony, when in bounces chirpy Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden to assist with the delivery. It remains to be seen how accurate this show’s title is (this was the pilot episode), since the list of celebs willing to expose their inadequacies when confronted with the kind of jobs normal people do is likely to be short. Read more... |
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Lolita?, BBC FourMonday, 14 December 2009
A penny for the author’s thoughts. An opening montage makes it quite clear that Vladimir Nabokov had no truck with witless modernity. Yet here nonetheless is a documentary on his infamous bestseller, and they've gone and named after a TV talent show about the hunt for an actress to play a singing nun in a West End musical. Why? Was the idea to interest Sound of Music fans in Lolita? Read more... |
I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story, ITV1Monday, 14 December 2009
"They all laughed at Rockefeller Centre, now they’re fighting to get in,” as the Gershwins put it. Read more... |
Mister Eleven, ITV1Saturday, 12 December 2009
You can just picture the meeting. Someone stands up and pitches. “We’ve got this girl, see. And she’s good at numbers, OK? You know, maths and stuff. But here’s the thing: she knows that statistically her best chance of a successful marriage is if she gets hitched to her 11th sexual partner when she’s 28. With me so far, guys? Trouble is, she discovers on her wedding day that Mister Eleven is really Mister Ten. Yeah? And then all hell breaks loose. What you reckon? Eh? Think it’s a goer?”... Read more... |
The Art of Russia, BBC FourWednesday, 09 December 2009
If Andrew Graham-Dixon's arts career ever goes belly-up, there is surely a microphone with his name on it at Radio 4, so warm and confident and trustworthy is his voice. Judging, however, by his new three-part programme on BBC Four, The Art of Russia, there is no chance of this happening soon. Read more... |
Games Britannia, BBC FourMonday, 07 December 2009
A bit like the British constitution, it’s never been written down. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist: the edict, issued from a leather-bound desk somewhere within the innermost enclave of the citadel that is Television Centre, that an audience’s intelligence must never in any circumstances ever be taken as a given. No horses were frightened in the making of this programme. Read more... |
Small Island, BBC OneSunday, 06 December 2009
Luckily, the budget for this two-part adaptation of Andrea Levy's prizewinning novel stretched to some location shooting in Jamaica. The contrast between the Caribbean's luminous skies and brilliant colours and crushed, monochrome, half-dead 1940s London is almost too painful to watch. It's the perfect visual metaphor for a story about Technicolor dreams crashing to earth Read more... |
Storyville: Simon Mann's African Coup, BBC FourWednesday, 02 December 2009
It always used to be said that boarding school prepares you for every hardship. Whether that includes prison in one of the most impenitent dictatorships in Africa is not a question that was put to Simon Mann in last night’s edition of Storyville. Mann, still incarcerated when the BBC caught up with him, was awaiting a pardon from President Teodoro Obiang, the very potentate he had attempted to topple five years earlier. Read more... |
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