tv
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle, BBC Four review - meticulous account of a haunting American tragedyWednesday, 08 January 2020
It happened 42 years ago, but the mass suicide of 900 people at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana is still an event that freezes the blood. They were members of the Peoples Temple, the semi-totalitarian cult founded by Jim Jones, who began as a mere egomaniac but morphed into a bullying dictator convinced of his own God-like powers. Read more... |
Cornwall: This Fishing Life, BBC Two review - a precarious trade on the ocean waveWednesday, 08 January 2020
Series about fishing have become a durable mini-genre, including the likes of Deadliest Catch and Saltwater Heroes. Read more... |
Dracula, BBC One review - horrific, and not in a good wayThursday, 02 January 2020
“Bela Lugosi’s dead,” as Bauhaus sang, in memory of the star of 1931’s Dracula. But of course death has never been an impediment to the career of the enfanged Transylvanian blood-sucker. Filmed and televisualised almost as frequently as Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula would doubtless join the cockroaches as the only entities to survive a thermonuclear holocaust. Read more... |
Dame Edna Rules the Waves / The Graham Norton Show, BBC One review - two ways to run a talk showTuesday, 31 December 2019
Talk shows can go one of two ways. You can create a welcoming space where your guests can kick their shoes off and start telling daringly revealing anecdotes. Alternatively, there’s the Dame Edna formula where the guests are cannon fodder for the host. Read more... |
The Trial of Christine Keeler, BBC One review - famous sex scandal makes uneven dramaMonday, 30 December 2019
One good Sixties brouhaha deserves another. After last year’s triumphant revival of the Jeremy Thorpe affair in A Very English Scandal, here comes the sleazy saga of John Profumo, the Conservative Secretary of State for War who was forced to resign from Harold Macmillan’s government in 1963. The cause of his downfall was his brief affair with model and showgirl Christine Keeler, who was 19 when Profumo first met her. Read more... |
Best of 2019: TVMonday, 30 December 2019
As symbolic moments go, the arrival of Martin Scorsese's new gangster epic The Irishman on Netflix took some beating. Read more... |
Liam Gallagher: As It Was, BBC Two review - no expletives deleted in exhausting rock-docMonday, 30 December 2019
Liam Gallagher knows exactly how "fucking fantastic… and fucking shit I am", and proceeds to tell us so for 85 minutes. This 10-year documentary project came about as a result of director Charlie Lightening’s friendship with Gallagher, formed as Oasis came to a predictable halt. Read more... |
Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special, BBC One - a big cwtch from BarryThursday, 26 December 2019
What joy to be back with the Shipman and West families, created by writing team James Corden and Ruth Jones. Read more... |
Martin's Close, BBC Four review - where did the scary bits go?Wednesday, 25 December 2019
The series of short films, A Ghost Story For Christmas, became a Yuletide staple on BBC One in the 1970s. Most of them were adapted from the works of medieval scholar M R James, and drew their unsettling supernatural aura from the understated and academic tone of the writing. Read more... |
Cinderella: After Ever After, Sky 1 review - preposterous fairytale sequel tweaks the funny boneWednesday, 25 December 2019
This divertingly daft sequel to the Cinderella story (Sky 1) was the brainchild of David Walliams, who introduced it as himself, sitting smugly by a roaring fire in his authorial smoking jacket. 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...
La Straniera, Chelsea Opera Group, Barlow, Cadogan Hall revi...
Chelsea Opera Group has made its own luck in winning the devotion of two great bel canto exponents: Nelly Miricioiu between 1998 and 2010...
Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new...
Netflix’s new detective-noir is a somewhat cosmopolitan beast. It’s written and directed by an American, Scott Frank, derived from a novel, ...
The Queen of Spades, Garsington Opera review - sonorous glid...
Recent events have prompted the assertion – understandable in Ukraine – that the idea of the Russian soul is a nationalist myth. This production...
Blu-ray: Eclipse
What constitutes a “lost classic”? I guess we can’t say it’s an oxymoron, since we readily accept the concept of “instant classic”? Either way,...
The Ballad of Wallis Island review - the healing power of th...
I think The Ballad of Wallis Island is the best...
Music Reissues Weekly: Pete Shelley - Homosapien, XL-1
Pete Shelley’s departure from Buzzcocks felt abrupt. When he left the...
The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature
“I can’t move my arms or legs, but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by...
Elephant, Menier Chocolate Factory review - subtle, humorous...
This charmingly eloquent semi-autobiographical show – which first played at the Bush Theatre in 2022 – tells the story of a girl whose...
