thu 31/07/2025

tv

The Cut (episode two), BBC Switch

Jasper Rees

The Beeb’s bold new experiment continues: to dish out a daily online teen soap in five-minute episodes. Am just about over the cyber-stress of Sunday’s part one. Couple of streaming issues were in play. Basically my laptop took to it like a boa wolfing down a rhino. All ironed out now. I can happily report that part two didn’t even touch the sides.

Read more...

Design for Life, BBC2

Gerard Gilbert Design for Life: Meet the Starck 'tribe'

Design for Life is a new BBC2 series about the philosophy of Philippe Starck, he of the iconic ‘space rocket’ lemon-juicer, in the form of an Apprentice-style reality show. It was also an intriguing insight into the control exercised by producers of such shows - for, unlike The Apprentice et al, the choice of contestants and the nature of the challenges were left to Starck himself. ‘Bloody terrifying’ was how Joe Houlihan, the executive producer, described to me the...

Read more...

The Cut (episode one), BBC Switch

Jasper Rees

Appointment-to-view content. That’s what they’re calling it. Not drama. Not soap. Content. Which you have to make an appointment to view. Although you actually don’t because it’s all on the iPlayer but let's let that pass. Here I am on BBC Switch, 8.10 sharp, for the Beeb’s first online daily soap, The Cut.

Read more...

Harper's Island

Adam Sweeting

Caught in a crossfire between licence-payers and rival media groups, the BBC has reached the frankly surreal conclusion that the answer is to cut down on imported programmes. Luckily Harper's Island (BBC3) has snuck in under the wire.

Read more...

Lunch Monkeys

Gerard Gilbert

BBC3 must sometimes feel very strange to its target audience – reflecting back a gallery of skunk-addled obese teenage single-mums not far removed from the nightmares of a Daily Mail reader. There’s no doubting the fruits of its comedy department however, and the likes of Man Stroke Woman, Monkey Dust, The Mighty Boosh, Gavin and Stacey and Being Human are shows that any averagely well-adjusted 16-34-year-old might actually enjoy. The sparky...

Read more...

The Last Days of Lehman Brothers, BBC Two review - big money gone bad

Adam Sweeting

In July the BBC brought us Freefall, writer/director Dominic Savage's credit crunch drama. It was a crude morality tale of greed and gullibility, just about compensating for its blatantly schematic characters with sheer pace.

Read more...

Beeb Babes Go To War

Adam Sweeting

Slickness is not always a virtue in a television presenter, and Katherine Jenkins (The Week We Went To War, BBC1) has some way to go before she risks being accused of it. Her chief weapons are her blonde hair, cleavage and searchlight smile -- she isn't so much the new Vera Lynn as one of those pneumatic dream-babes that American aircrews used to paint on the noses of their B17s -- but even so she struggles to...

Read more...

Beatles For (Multiplatform) Sale

Adam Sweeting

Oasis have split up, but The Beatles keep getting bigger. This week, in a synchronised splurge of Beatle product of almost D-Day like proportions, their complete remastered albums are being reissued, the group appear in virtual form in the computer game The Beatles: Rock Band, and the BBC continues the Beatles Week which kicked off in a blaze of Kleenex-moistening nostalgia on Saturday.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, BBC One review - love, de...

Readers of Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning novel will be familiar with its themes of war, extreme suffering, ageing, memory, fidelity and...

BBC Proms: Kholodenko, BBCNOW, Otaka review - exhilarating L...

According to the programme, Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is heard somewhere around the world every other week. In which case I’ve...

The Daughter of Time, Charing Cross Theatre review - unfocus...

Following confirmation that he was the owner of the bones found in a Leicester car park in 2012, Richard III has never been a hotter,...

theartsdesk Q&A: actor Lars Eidinger on 'Dying...

To get Lars Eidinger "right", one must take him cloven hoof and all. He's intense, unconventional, and driven – but by what, exactly?...

Album: Cian Ducrot - Little Dreaming

Cian Ducrot cut his teeth on a blend of intimate singer-songwriter balladry and lowkey alt-pop, most of his debut album Victory ...

Evita, London Palladium review - even more thrilling the sec...

Would Jamie Lloyd's mind-bending revival of Evita win through twice in four weeks, I wondered to myself, paraphrasing a Tim Rice lyric...

Maiden Voyage, Southwark Playhouse review - new musical runs...

As the nation basks in the reflected glory of The Lionesses' Euro25 victory, it could hardly be more timely for the Southwark...

Album: Bonniesongs - Strangest Feeling

It’s not foregrounded, but as Strangest Feeling beds in after repeated listens it becomes clear that one of its core traits is The Pixies...

theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2025 - Arvo Pärt at...

Life-changing? That's how the Pärnu Music Festival felt on my first visit in 2015, alongside the discovery of...