fri 25/07/2025

tv

Stewart Copeland's Adventures in Music, BBC Four review - an essay on the emotional power of music

Marina Vaizey

Drums away: Stewart Copeland, drummer with The Police and a score of other groups, composer for films, video games and operas, now beams enthusiastically at us from the small screen.

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Crazy Delicious, Channel 4 review - the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV ?

Adam Sweeting

The race continues to create the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV. Channel 4’s new brainchild, Crazy Delicious, finds the culinary nutty professor Heston Blumenthal teaming up with fellow-judges Carla Hall and Niklas Ekstedt to become the “Gods of Food”.

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Chris Packham: 7.7 Billion People and Counting, BBC Two review - is it too late to get population growth under control?

Adam Sweeting

We hear plenty of debate about climate change and its disastrous potential, but the ballooning growth of the world’s population may be the most critical issue facing humankind.

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The Outsider, Sky Atlantic review - double trouble in small-town Georgia

Adam Sweeting

Stephen King’s novels have generated an impressive lineage of successful adaptations.

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Cobra, Sky 1 review - entertaining mix of political mischief and cosmic chaos

Adam Sweeting

If nothing else, you’d want to tune in to Cobra (Sky 1) for its cast. Robert Carlyle is steely and decisive as Prime Minister Robert Sutherland, his indispensable fixer Anna Marshall is played by Victoria “Queen Mother” Hamilton, and David Haig oozes bullying malevolence as Home Secretary Archie Glover-Morgan.

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Messiah, Netflix review - con-artist or the Second Coming?

Adam Sweeting

It’s an intriguing question. If a new Messiah appeared today, what kind of reception could he (if it was a he) expect? Possibly something similar to the one which greeted Jesus, according to Netflix’s new series Messiah.

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This Is Our Family, Sky Atlantic review - can Emma and Tony live happily ever after?

Adam Sweeting

Sky Atlantic is usually where you go for big-hitting dramas, so this quartet of observational documentaries is an unexpected development. Each film follows a single family over three years, and each family faces particular challenges.

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How to Steal Pigs and Influence People, Channel 4 review - the arcane world of the online vegan influencers

Adam Sweeting

Filmmaker Tom Costello’s opening question in this quixotic but fascinating documentary for Channel 4 deftly skewered the journey he was about to take us on. Was making change or finding fame more important?

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Deadwater Fell, Channel 4 review - dark murder mystery in a Scottish village

Markie Robson-Scott

An idyllic Scottish classroom full of happy children making sponge paintings of flowers with two enthusiastic young teachers – clearly, doom is in the air. Here comes that sense of dread again a little later at a ceilidh in a village hall, with everyone trying a little too hard to look happy.

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White House Farm, ITV review - gripping opener of true crime drama

Veronica Lee

It's the smallest lies that can bring you down. When he is asked by a detective how he got on with his family, who have just been murdered in a mass shooting at their Essex farm, Jeremy Bamber (Freddie Fox) says: “Really well.

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