sat 17/05/2025

tv

Mare of Easttown, Sky Atlantic review - Kate Winslet shines in finely-drawn Pennsylvania mystery

Adam Sweeting

Read our review of the season finale here

Read more...

Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty, BBC Two review - when crime paid handsomely for corrupt officers

Adam Sweeting

As Line of Duty aficionados debate the identity of H and wonder who DCI Joanne Davidson shares her DNA with, this new three-part series from BBC Two investigates the history of real-life corruption in the Metropolitan Police.

Read more...

Too Close, ITV review - capable cast struggles with unrewarding material

Adam Sweeting

What may have happened here is that an intriguing book has been turned into a not so great TV series.

Read more...

This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist, Netflix - the last word (for now)

Florence Hallett

It’s no surprise that 30 years on, the individuals most closely connected to the world’s biggest art heist are showing their age.

Read more...

Intruder, Channel 5 review - implausible but watchable

Adam Sweeting

Channel 5 is rather partial to its four-night dramas, though recent effort The Drowning seemed to have sneaked unseen past the quality control department on its way to the screen. It pulled in the viewers though, and Intruder will probably do the same.

Read more...

Queen Elizabeth and the Spy in the Palace, Channel 4 review - how the Fourth Man burrowed deep into the British Establishment

Adam Sweeting

Director of the Courtauld Institute, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and a particular expert on the art of Poussin, Sir Anthony Blunt spent decades at the epicentre of the royal family and the British Establishment.

Read more...

Messiah highlights, English National Opera, BBC Two review – short-cut sorrow and redemption

Boyd Tonkin

Well, it wasn’t quite Messiah, but it was a source of joy. In ENO’s end-of-lockdown staging, BBC Two’s transmission of Handel’s resurrection song delivered a scant 54 minutes of music from the Coliseum on Easter Saturday.

Read more...

Keeping Faith, Series 3, BBC One review - is the drama turning to melodrama?

Adam Sweeting

After arriving with a bang in 2018, Keeping Faith (BBC One) disappointed many (though not all) of its fans with 2019’s second series. It’s had a bit of a breather before this third – and final – series, first seen in its Welsh version Un Bore Mercher on S4C last November. So, how is it shaping up?

Read more...

The Flight Attendant, Sky One review - first-class entertainment

Markie Robson-Scott

“I get to see all these beautiful places and look passengers right in the eye and say the word trash.” Meet Cassie Bowden (the excellent Kaley Cuoco), flight attendant on Imperial Atlantic Airways. In firm denial about her alcohol problem, she knocks back myriads of vodka miniatures onboard, parties hard in cities the world over, has one-night stands after black-out benders (“Thank you for the effort.

Read more...

Line of Duty, Series 6, BBC One review - fasten your seatbelts, it's back

Adam Sweeting

Jed Mercurio’s tangly police corruption thriller Line of Duty has become one of the jewels in the BBC’s drama crown, and this sixth (and possibly last) series has finally arrived on BBC One after a steadily growing crescendo of pre-publicity. Can it live up to the hype?

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Magic Farm review - numpties from the Nineties

There’s nothing more healthy than dissing your own dad, and filmmaker Amalia Ulman says that her old man was “a Gen X deadbeat edgelord skater”...

The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into...

As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on...

theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out p...

If you compiled a list of favourite TV series from the last couple of decades, you’d find that Zoë Telford has appeared in most of them. The...

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Wigmore Hall review - too big a splash...

It was a daring idea to mark Ravel’s 150th birthday year with a single concert packing in all his works for solo piano. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet knows...

Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and...

Good One is a generation-and-gender gap drama that mostly unfolds during a weekend hiking and camping trip in the Catskills Forest...

E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review - dull...

It’s hard to say who is going to enjoy E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. Admirers of the modernist designer-architect will...

Album: Rico Nasty - LETHAL

Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something less distinct...

The Marching Band review - what's the French for '...

In Emmanuel Courcol’s drama The Marching Band (En Fanfare in French, and also released as My Brother's Band), a...

Lucy Farrell, Catherine MacLellan, The Green Note review - s...

Lucy Farrell, one quarter of the brilliant, award-winning Anglo-Scots band Furrow Collective, and a solo artist whose stunning debut album, We...