tv
The Plot Against America, Sky Atlantic review - fascism comes to 1940s USAWednesday, 15 July 2020
Based on Philip Roth’s 2004 novel of the same name, The Plot Against America flashes back to the global turbulence of the 1940s to depict a counterfactual America that turns to the dark side. Read more... |
The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, BBC Two review - how the Aussie tycoon acquired huge political leverageWednesday, 15 July 2020
As an opening line to BBC Two's new three-part series, “Rupert Murdoch is an enigma” failed to set pulses racing. Read more... |
Mrs America, BBC Two review - how a conservative revolutionary scuppered the Equal Rights AmendmentThursday, 09 July 2020
In the midst of our increasingly confrontational politics of race and gender, it was a timely move to make this series (on BBC Two) about Seventies radical feminism and the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the USA, even if... Read more... |
The Choir: Singing for Britain Finale, BBC Two review - stirring songs from a garden shedWednesday, 08 July 2020
Once again the incredible healing powers of Gareth Malone swung into action, as his quest to find a universal anthem for the Covid crisis boiled up to a climax (BBC Two). Read more... |
The Battle of Britain, Channel 5 review - 80th anniversary of the RAF's finest hourWednesday, 08 July 2020
The notion of massed aircraft dogfighting over southern England seems inconceivable now, but the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 was all too horribly real for its participants. Read more... |
Being Beethoven, BBC Four review – from grubby kid to grumpy geniusTuesday, 07 July 2020
Documentaries like this one make me sentimental for a time, until about 25 years ago, when classical music was a more or less weekly presence on terrestrial TV. Read more... |
The Kemps: All True, BBC Two review - more self-promotion than self-mockeryMonday, 06 July 2020
The spoof “rockumentary” always sounds like a great idea, but it’s hard to pull off. Largely this is because rock stars are so divorced from reality that an element of self-parody is already built in, albeit unwittingly (“everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed” as Joe Walsh deadpanned in "Life's Been Good"). Read more... |
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, Sky Atlantic review - the good, the bad and the unspeakableThursday, 02 July 2020
American history of the 1930s and ‘40s suddenly seems to be all the rage on TV, cropping up in the reborn Perry Mason, Das Boot and now this new incarnation of Penny Dreadful (Sky Atlantic). The original was a blowsy Gothic mash-up of Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyll & Hyde and anything vaguely related that could be made to fit. Read more... |
Storyville: Welcome to Chechnya, BBC Four review - trauma, tension and resistanceThursday, 02 July 2020
David France’s revelatory film may have been subtitled “The Gay Purge”, but from the start it was clear this wasn’t just another documentary from Russia charting the increasing pressure faced by that country’s queer community. Read more... |
Das Boot, Series 2 Finale, Sky Atlantic review - deeper and darkerWednesday, 01 July 2020
The second series of Das Boot (Sky Atlantic) began strongly, and by the time we reached this last pair of episodes it was almost too agonising to watch. 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...
The Fifth Step, Soho Place review - wickedly funny two-hande...
The plays of David Ireland have a tendency to build to an explosion, after long stretches of caustic dialogue and very funny banter....
Josefowicz, LSO, Mälkki, Barbican review - two old favourite...
Every now and then a concert programme comes along that fits like a bespoke suit, and this one could have been specially designed for me. Two...
Mr Swallow: Show Pony, Richmond Theatre review - magic trick...
Nick Mohammed invented his Mr Swallow character – camp, lisping, with an inflated ego and the mistaken belief that he has creative...
The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a feast of...
Photographer Finetime and I have our first pints outside Dalton’s, a bar on...
Parsifal, Glyndebourne review - the music flies up, the dram...
There’s a grail, but it doesn't glow in a mundane if perverted Christian ritual. Three of the main characters have young and old actor versions...
The Bombing of Pan Am 103, BBC One review - new dramatisatio...
The appalling destruction of Pan Am’s flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 was put under the spotlight in January this year in Sky Atlantic’s ...
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works, Royal Ballet review - th...
Ballet is hardly a stranger to Broadway. Until the late 1950s every other musical had its fantasy ballet sequence – think Cyd Charisse in ...
Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries
“Tell me what you see” invites Robert Forster during Strawberries' “Tell it Back to me.” The album’s eight songs do not, however,...
Music Reissues Weekly: Chapterhouse - White House Demos
Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on...