tv
Ludwig, BBC One review - entertaining spin on the brainy detective formulaTuesday, 08 October 2024
The latest incarnation of David Mitchell, TV actor, looks at first sight much like the familar one from Peep Show and Back. Not a pufflepant in sight. His only costume change for Ludwig is a pair of wire-frame spectacles. Read more... |
The Hardacres, Channel 5 review - a fishy tale of upward mobilityTuesday, 08 October 2024
Set in Yorkshire in the 1890s, and based on the novels by CL Skelton, The Hardacres is the story of the titular family who, it seems, were pioneers of takeaway fish, although not accompanied by chips. It’s their stall selling fried herring fresh from the ocean which makes the Hardacres an unexpected fortune. Read more... |
Joan, ITV1 review - the roller-coaster career of a 1980s jewel thiefSaturday, 05 October 2024
If you’re looking for an advertisement for how crime doesn’t pay, Joan will do very nicely. Written by Anna Symon, this six-part series is based on the memoirs of real-life jewel thief Joan Hannington, whose light-fingered accomplishments earned her notoriety back in the Eighties. Some apparently referred to her as “The Godmother”, though they don’t here. Read more... |
The Penguin, Sky Atlantic review - power, corruption, lies and prostheticsTuesday, 01 October 2024
Is there no limit to the number of times the comic book heroes and villains from Marvel and DC can be recycled? HBO’s The Penguin (showing on Sky Atlantic) is a spin-off from Matt Reeves’s 2022 film The Batman, which starred Robert Pattinson in the title role and Colin Farrell as Oswald “Oz” Cobb, aka The Penguin. Read more... |
A Very Royal Scandal, Prime Video review - a fairly sound reimagining, but to what end?Saturday, 21 September 2024
Why do production companies think the world needs yet another reconstituted TV drama involving famous people in infamous situations? Newspapers and non fiction books already do a great job of telling these stories of intrigue and scandal: why is a TV adaptation a viable improvement? Read more... |
Nightsleeper, BBC One review - strangers on a runaway trainFriday, 20 September 2024
“Let the train take the strain”, as the old advertising slogan urged us. The train in this six-part drama has to soak up a whole world of strain, as it’s taken over by cyber-hijackers who demand a huge ransom before they’ll consider relinquishing their technological grip. Read more... |
The Perfect Couple, Netflix review - an inconvenient death ruins lavish Nantucket weddingFriday, 13 September 2024
Based on the novel by Elin Hilderbrand, The Perfect Couple is an expensively-dressed fable about a lavish wedding in Nantucket, the desirable island paradise off Cape Cod, which on this evidence is an enclave of conspicuous wealth and gross moral turpitude. Read more... |
Sambre: Anatomy of a Crime, BBC Four review - satisfying novelistic retelling of a French true crime sagaTuesday, 10 September 2024
Like the BBC’s documentary series The Yorkshire Ripper Files before it, the French six-part drama Sambre on BBC Four is more than a grim rerun of an extended crime spree. On trial, too, are the forces that allowed the crimes to continue – here, for an incomprehensible 30 years. Read more... |
Kaos, Netflix review - playing fast and profuse with the Greek mythsSaturday, 07 September 2024
The ancient Greeks would probably have liked a lot about Charlie Covell‘s manipulation of mythic material. After all, Euripides was prepared to have a laugh about the notion of Helen whisked off to Egypt while a phantom version wrought havoc in Troy. Helen doesn’t figure in this mostly modern-dress gods-vs-humans drama, but so many other legendary figures do, as well as several you probably won’t have heard of. Read more... |
Slow Horses, Season 4, Apple TV+ review - Gary Oldman returns as the 'gross and inappropriate' Jackson LambWednesday, 04 September 2024
News reaches us that Gary Oldman has mysteriously been vetoed from playing George Smiley in a new film version of Smiley’s People, despite his Oscar-nominated performance as John le Carre’s wiley spymaster in 2011’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Oldman’s people have described this decision as “the damnedest thing”. Read more... |
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