mon 18/08/2025

tv

Lupin, Part 2, Netflix review - master of disguise versus racists and lies

Adam Sweeting

Lupin isn’t really about the fictional character it’s named after (the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc), but about Assane Diop, who’s an obsessive fan of the Lupin novels.

Read more...

The Beast Must Die, Britbox review - a crime story which plumbs psychological depths

Adam Sweeting

They all laughed when the streaming service Britbox declared that it wanted to become a sort of UK-orientated Netflix, because so far it’s been mostly a back catalogue operation which plunders the BBC and ITV archives. You really want to pay a subscription to watch Are You Being Served? and Rosemary and Thyme?

Read more...

Time, BBC One review - grim and gritty study of life behind bars by Jimmy McGovern

Adam Sweeting

Jimmy McGovern’s new three-part drama about prison life is about as far as you could travel from Ronnie Barker’s Seventies sitcom Porridge, even if they are both on the same TV channel.

Read more...

Anne Boleyn, Channel 5 review - whispery and weepy

Matt Wolf

"Get out!" The order, spoken some way into the third and final episode of Channel 5's entry into the Tudor drama sweepstakes, Anne Boleyn, certainly seizes one's attention.

Read more...

Mare of Easttown, Season Finale, Sky Atlantic review - great performances in a town called malice

Adam Sweeting

With the last series of Line of Duty having left portions of its viewership dismayed and disgruntled, one consolation prize has been the way the many fine qualities of HBO’s Mare of Easttown (on Sky Atlantic) have seen it promoted it into the “unmissable” bracket.

Read more...

Before We Die, Channel 4 review - Lesley Sharp excels as a detective in crisis

Adam Sweeting

Perhaps inspired by its ever-intriguing Walter Presents strand, Channel 4’s new thriller Before We Die is based on a Swedish original called Innan vi dör (“before we die” in Swedish).

Read more...

1971, Apple TV+ review - rock'n'roll's golden year?

Tim Cumming

Back in the mid-Eighties, BBC television started broadcasting The Rock'n' Roll Years, one of the first rock music retrospectives. Each half-hour episode focused on a year, with news reports and music intermixed to give a revealing look at the development of rock culture against the context of current affairs.

Read more...

We Are Lady Parts, Channel 4 review - female Muslim punk band rocks the house

Adam Sweeting

It’s crazy, but could it possibly work? Writer Nida Manzoor (a veteran of Doctor Who and BBC Three’s sitcom Enterprice) grew up in a Muslim family, but that didn’t stop her being a fan of punk rock, Blackadder and This Is Spinal Tap.

Read more...

Trying, Apple TV+ review - the road to parenthood takes a fresh path

Matt Wolf

An attractive and likeable cast remains the principal drawing card of Trying, the Apple TV+ romcom centred around the efforts of a 30something couple to adopt a child. Following on from the first season aired last spring, Andy Wolton's creation gives pride of place to a terrific assemblage of actors, who carry the day even when the piece itself seems to tread faintly overfamiliar ground.

Read more...

The Underground Railroad, Amazon Prime review - a horrifying ride through America's heart of darkness

Adam Sweeting

Many a director might have considered that televising Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad was impossible, but Barry Jenkins, Oscar-winning director of Moonlight, has proved it can be done.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
BBC Proms: Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet review - super-sized...

There’s a Proms paradox that’s familiar to Early Music fans....

Gibby Haynes, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - ex-Butthole...

Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Cat Cohen / Lachlan Werner /...

Cat Cohen, Pleasance Courtyard ...

Album: Adrian Sherwood - The Collapse of Everything

UK dub maestro and producer, Adrian Sherwood is hardly what...

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Residents - American Composer...

George & James was originally released in March 1984. Stars & Hank Forever! emerged in October 1986. The two LPs were...

Frang, Romaniw, Liverman, LSO, Pappano, Edinburgh Internatio...

Right from the bracing brass fanfare that began this Sea Symphony, you know exactly where you were: right in the midst of the deck, with...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Ordinary Decent Criminal / In...

Ordinary Decent Criminal, Summerhall ...