tv
A House Through Time, Series Finale, BBC Two review - timely series reaches uneven conclusionWednesday, 17 June 2020
Setting his third series of A House Through Time in Bristol (BBC One) was a stroke of inspired prescience for historian and presenter David Olusoga. Read more... |
Hillary, Sky Documentaries review - facing the fire and furyFriday, 12 June 2020
“Never get rattled”. For some, it might sound like a trite self-help mantra. For Hillary Rodham Clinton, it was an essential daily memo and a practical self-affirmation. In recent public memory, she is the political figure who has been rattled the most, often with sinister intent. Read more... |
What We Do in the Shadows, BBC Two review - the vampires of Staten Island are backFriday, 12 June 2020
The first series of What We Do in the Shadows, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s mockumentary about vampires in Staten Island (a TV spin-off from their cult New Zealand-located film) was a joy, and although it’s a hard act to follow, it’s delicious to be reacquainted with these timeless Transylvanian transplants and their mission to conquer the Americas. At least, that’s what their master, a crumbling vampire baron, has told them to do. Read more... |
Freud, Netflix review - hysteria and horrorThursday, 11 June 2020
Anyone expecting, as I was, a reverend and slightly earnest miniseries about Sigmund Freud's early professional years will be in for a surprise, and mostly in a good way. Read more... |
Das Boot, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - multi-layered war drama goes from strength to strengthWednesday, 10 June 2020
Das Boot made an impressive debut early last year with its entwined narratives of war by land and sea. Read more... |
The World's Greatest Paintings, Channel 5 review - enthusiastic presenter but no dazzling revelationsSunday, 07 June 2020
Andrew Marr’s art show is a lot of fun, although engulfed in almost overwhelming banality and cliché. Our enthusiastic presenter is a self-confessed addict of art. Read more... |
The Other One, BBC One review - entertaining odd-couple sitcomSaturday, 06 June 2020
This engaging sitcom created by comedian Holly Walsh has had a long gestation: this, the pilot episode, was first broadcast back in 2017 but Walsh's pregnancy meant that the six-part series commissioned at the time was filmed last year. Read more... |
Little Fires Everywhere, Amazon Prime review - in every dream home a heartacheFriday, 05 June 2020
Reese Witherspoon has evolved into a growth industry on the new frontier of Big Television. Her production company Hello Sunshine has a heap of projects on the go with a range of networks, and following her success with Big Little Lies (for HBO), Little Fires Everywhere comes to you courtesy of Hulu (in the US) and Amazon Prime. Read more... |
A Very British Hotel Chain: Inside Best Western, Series Finale, Channel 4 review - let's hear it for Alasdair the hotel inspectorWednesday, 03 June 2020
It’s impossible to tell whether this reality-doc series (C4) came to praise Best Western hotels or kill it off entirely. Read more... |
Shutdown: The Virus That Changed Our World, Sky Documentaries review - a chaotic response and an uncertain futureWednesday, 03 June 2020
It’s too early for a definitive account of the Covid-19 pandemic, and this was very much a Sky News version of what we’ve been through so far. Although it seems the virus has peaked and we’re entering a tentative stage of partial de-lockdown, the message was relentlessly grim. 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...