sat 19/07/2025

tv

Imagine... Tracey Emin: Where Do You Draw the Line, BBC One review - entertaining but deferential

Markie Robson-Scott

It’s been a whirlwind year for Tracey Emin, CBE, RA. Her pink neon sign, “I want my time with you”, greets passengers at St Pancras station, she’s installed bronze birds all over Sydney city centre, she’s making a derelict print works in Margate into a living-space/studio that’s going to be like Rodin’s in Paris but “slightly bigger”, and she’s got married.

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There She Goes, BBC Four review - mining disability for family comedy?

Saskia Baron

What do you do after playing Doctor Who, the dream dad of the nation, quirky and compassionate, the adult who every child knows will be fun?  Does it seem like a good idea to play the beleaguered father of a child with special needs? It must do, because David Tennant has now followed Christopher Ecclestone, who played the grandfather of an autistic boy in The A Word.

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Informer, BBC One review - keeping tabs on terror

Adam Sweeting

Thanks heavens not all police officers spend their time trying to find “hate crime” on Twitter, or not going to the assistance of colleagues in peril. Take Gabe Waters, for instance, the central character in BBC One’s new undercover-policier.

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Barneys, Books and Bust Ups, BBC Four review - the Booker Prize at 50

Marina Vaizey

You had to keep your eyes skinned. Was that Iris Murdoch or AS Byatt, Kingsley Amis or John Banville, Margaret Atwood or Val McDermid – maybe, even, Joanna Lumley? Tables as far as the eye can see, dressed with white tablecloths and crowded with wine glasses.

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Press, BBC One, series finale review - scarcely credible but highly entertaining

Jasper Rees

It’s difficult to tell whether Press (BBC One) came to praise newspapers or to bury them. The slugfest between preachy liberal do-goodery and mucky market-led skulduggery ended in a score draw, with the main protagonists living to fight another day and speak to their ever more polarised silos. Any sensible viewer might have concluded that the plot was stark-raving amphetamine-enriched baloney.

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The Bisexual, Channel 4 review - joyless comedy drama

Veronica Lee

Write about what you know, every nascent novelist is told.

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Wanderlust, BBC One, series finale review - you can't have your cake and eat it

Jasper Rees

So Wanderlust (BBC One) has ceased wandering and its angsty parade of characters have left a sentence unfinished for the last time. In the end, where were we, compared to where we’ve been? The final episode opened with Joy, like King Alfred, burning the pancakes. Seemingly her boats had suffered the same fate, atomised under the centrifugal forces of love and lust, but also a mass break-out of grief...

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Doctor Who, The Woman Who Fell to Earth, BBC One review - a captivating debut from Jodie Whittaker

Lisa-Marie Ferla

Re-casting a beloved character always carries a measure of risk. Solo: A Star Wars Story relied on the willingness of fans to buy in to Alden Ehrenreich as a younger incarnation of Harrison Ford: the film bombed (you know, in Star Wars terms, since it barely made $400 million).

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The Cry, BBC One review - every parent's nightmare

Adam Sweeting

Following the runaway success of Bodyguard, Jed Mercurio is no doubt popping more champagne and saying “follow that”. Stepping up to BBC One’s Sunday 9pm slot is The Cry, which transports us from suicide bombs and political intrigue and instead immerses us in the emotional plight of new mother Joanna (Jenna Coleman) and her partner Alistair (Ewen Leslie).

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Queen of the World, ITV review - born to run and run

Marina Vaizey

Awesome numbers: over a million miles, the equivalent of 42 times around the globe, have been traversed by Her Majesty the Queen, enabling visits over the past seven decades or so to 117 different countries. No one has reigned longer nor travelled further.

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