tue 24/06/2025

tv

Liam Gallagher: As It Was, BBC Two review - no expletives deleted in exhausting rock-doc

Kathryn Reilly

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.

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Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special, BBC One - a big cwtch from Barry

Veronica Lee

What joy to be back with the Shipman and West families, created by writing team James Corden and Ruth Jones.

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Martin's Close, BBC Four review - where did the scary bits go?

Adam Sweeting

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.

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Cinderella: After Ever After, Sky 1 review - preposterous fairytale sequel tweaks the funny bone

Adam Sweeting

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.

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Hugh Grant: A Life on Screen, BBC Two review - hiding in plain sight?

Marina Vaizey

This charming BBC Two hagiography – which may be a contradiction in terms – opened on a montage of praise, with just a hint of irony for the hugely successful actor Hugh Grant. He was born in Hammersmith Hospital, although neither he nor his father can quite remember.

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A Christmas Carol, BBC One review – Dickens classic recast as gruelling horror story

Adam Sweeting

If you came to this expecting to be reminded of such ghosts of Scrooges past as Alastair Sim or Bill Murray, you will have been reaching either for the brandy or the defibrillator.

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Heston's Marvellous Menu: Back to the Noughties, BBC Two review - ghost of food trends past

Jill Chuah Masters

Heston Blumenthal, of triple-cooked chips fame, is a mad food scientist. Well, that’s how we’re introduced to him in Heston’s Marvellous Menu.

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The Brexit Storm Continues: Laura Kuenssberg's Inside Story, BBC Two review - rehashed political history fails to set pulses racing

Adam Sweeting

All the TV networks like to big up their news journalists as major players, but are they as important as they like to think?

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Charles I: Killing a King, BBC Four review - sad stories of the death of kings

Adam Sweeting

This three-part series by historian Lisa Hilton is a follow-up to her previous effort from last July, Charles I: Downfall of a King (BBC Four).

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Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar, Channel 5 review - a diverting melding of fact and fiction

Veronica Lee

Christmas and Agatha Christie are a very good fit – how better to spend time with your loved ones than sitting down to watch some murder and intrigue together?

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