thu 04/09/2025

tv

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Domina, Sky Atlantic review - a little less conversation, a little more action required

Adam Sweeting

Ancient Rome has always been a popular playground for film and TV, whether it’s Ben Hur, Gladiator or the 2005 TV series Rome. This Italian-made series for Sky Atlantic was shot at the renowned Cinecittà Studios in Rome, where Visconti, Leone, Scorsese and Bertolucci have all worked, but sadly none of that old-time movie magic has rubbed off on it.

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Danny Boy, BBC Two review - when law and war collide

Adam Sweeting

The issue of public inquiries into the conduct of the military is in the headlines again, with a current focus on Northern Ireland, but at the centre of screenwriter Robert Jones’s Danny Boy was the attempt to find British soldiers guilty of war crimes in Iraq.

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The Pursuit of Love, BBC One review - extravagantly entertaining

Matt Wolf

Nancy Mitford's 1945 literary sensation looks poised to be the TV talking point of the season, assuming the first episode of The Pursuit of Love sustains its utterly infectious energy through two hours still to come.

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BBC Young Musician 2020 Finale, BBC Four review - poise versus extraterrestrial ecstasy

David Nice

“You have to be careful you’re not judging the piece,” cautioned a pearl-necklaced Nicholas Daniel, great oboist and winner of the 1980 BBC Young Musician (of the Year, as it then was).

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Line of Duty, Series 6 Finale, BBC One review - crafty ending leaves wriggle room for a sequel

Adam Sweeting

WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERS

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Intergalactic, Sky One review - lovely CGI, shame about the drama

Adam Sweeting

Welcome to Commonworld, in the year 2143. It’s been built above the ruins of the old world, and the opening sequence of Sky One’s new interstellar thriller showed us the crumbling remains of Tower Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral mouldering beneath glittering futuristic super-scrapers and sweeping skyways.

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