tv
Snackmasters, Channel 4 review - superchefs take the clone-a-KitKat challengeWednesday, 02 October 2019
The themes of food and cookery have already been boiled until the bottom of the saucepan melted, but TV commissioning editors can’t stop searching for new twists in the formula. Read more... |
World on Fire, BBC One review - more melodrama than dramaMonday, 30 September 2019
For his new drama series for BBC One, writer Peter Bowker (The A Word, Monroe etc) has taken as his canvas no less than a panorama of Europe in 1939, just as World War Two is breaking out. Read more... |
My Life is Murder, Alibi review - whimsical tales of detection from Down UnderWednesday, 25 September 2019
Lucy Lawless achieved cult status in the Nineties fantasy classic Xena: Warrior Princess, and later became a regular in such disparate creations as Battlestar Galactica and Parks and Recreation. In My Life is Murder, she joins the ever-expanding ranks of TV ‘tecs as Melbourne-based investigator Alexa Crowe. Read more... |
Saving Lives at Sea, BBC Two review - derring-do on the ocean wave with the RNLIWednesday, 25 September 2019
Learning support officer. Student. Chip shop owner. Mobile caterer. Gym owner. These were the day jobs of some of the volunteers featured in this week’s portfolio of tales on BBC Two from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who would all doubtless deny that they do anything heroic. For the people they rescue, they most certainly do. Read more... |
The $50m Art Swindle, BBC Two review - ramblin' gamblin' man comes home to roostTuesday, 24 September 2019
“It’s nice to make money – lots of money,” said Michel Cohen, former high-flying New York art dealer turned debtor, jailbird and fugitive. He made oodles of the stuff and then lost it all, leaving a string of wealthy art collectors and galleries to lick their wounds over the colossal debts he never repaid. Read more... |
The Cameron Years, BBC One review - quite interesting but a bit boringFriday, 20 September 2019
David Cameron has been a recluse since the fateful days of June 2016 when the referendum on EU membership didn’t go quite the way he’d hoped. He’s probably been living through a private purgatory. “I think I will think about this forever,” he murmured to the camera in this first instalment of BBC One’s two-part doc. Read more... |
City on a Hill, Sky Atlantic review - power, corruption and larceny in 1990s BostonThursday, 19 September 2019
Connoisseurs of gnarly Boston-based crime sagas like The Town, The Departed and Black Mass will quickly find themselves at home in this sleaze-ridden new show, made by Showtime and brought to us by Sky Atlantic. Read more... |
Defending the Guilty, BBC Two review - trials and tribulations of a trainee barristerWednesday, 18 September 2019
This new legal comedy is based on a well-received book by Alex McBride, but the transition from print to the BBC Two screen hasn’t been an unalloyed success. Read more... |
Love in the Countryside, BBC Two review - reaping a harvest of marital bliss?Wednesday, 18 September 2019
If you’re a farmer who works round the clock to feed sheep, milk cows and so forth, how on earth do you make time to find a partner and reap a harvest of marital bliss? Read more... |
Temple, Sky 1 review - down in the tube station at midnightSaturday, 14 September 2019
At first, the opening episode of Sky 1’s enticing new drama Temple looked like it was going to be mostly concerned with a heist gone wrong. 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 Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust...
As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it...
Album: Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The Light
Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end...
The Flying Dutchman, Opera Holland Park review - into the st...
Thankfully, Julia Burbach’s version of The Flying Dutchman for Opera Holland Park doesn’t try to be one of those concept-laden...
The Frogs, Southwark Playhouse review - great songs save upd...
As a regular theatregoer, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no story too bizarre to work as a...
Album: Sally Shapiro - Ready to Live a Lie
Ready to Live a Lie is so sonically vaporous it almost isn’t there. While the album’s 11 tracks draw from continental European musical...
Il Trittico, Opéra de Paris review - reordered Puccini works...
So here in Paris, as at Salzburg in 2022, it’s no longer “Puccini’s Trittico” but “the Asmik Grigorian Trittico 3-1-2”. Which...
When the Light Breaks review - only lovers left alive
Grief takes unexpected turns over the course of a long Icelandic...
Marwood, Crabb, Wigmore Hall review - tangos, laments and an...
James Crabb is a musical magician, taking the ever-unfashionable accordion into new and unlikely places, through bespoke arrangements of a...