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Black Earth Rising, BBC Two review - Blick's new blockbuster

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 11 September 2018

As writer and director, Hugo Blick has brought us two of the twistiest dramas in recent-ish memory (The Shadow Line and The Honourable Woman).

Wanderlust, BBC One review - an unflinching look at stale sex

Owen Richards Wednesday, 05 September 2018

What signals the end of a relationship? The loss of attraction? Infidelity? Or is it, as Wanderlust explores, something more innocuous?

Vanity Fair, ITV review - seductions of social climbing

Mark Sanderson Monday, 03 September 2018

Emcee Michael Palin, as William Makepeace Thackeray himself, introduces us to the show: “Yes, this is Vanity Fair; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy.” All his major characters – or “puppets” – are riding a fairground carousel. They – and very soon, we – are having a great time.

Keeping Faith, BBC One, series finale review - we need to talk about Evan

Jasper Rees Friday, 31 August 2018

It’s been a long haul for Keeping Faith. The drama was shot in Welsh and English simultaneously, and premiered in the former with subtitles on S4C at the back end of 2017. It switched to the latter language on BBC One Wales earlier this year.

Bodyguard, BBC One, episode 2 review - a wild ride to who knows where

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 28 August 2018

It was always a question of when. As in when would the hoity-toity Home Secretary and her poker-faced bodyguard move into the horizontal? “I’m not the queen, you know,” she said, by way of a hot come-on. “You can touch me.” As a mode of discourse, this marked quite a step-up from the first episode of Jed Mercurio's new drama. Then the Rt Hon Julia Montague didn’t even want his vote.

Comment

Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage, Channnel 4 review - making meaning in death

Marina Vaizey Friday, 24 August 2018

Grayson Perry is at it again. The Turner Prize winner, Reith lecturer, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, curator, writer, British Museum trustee, CBE, RA – plus Britain's and the art world’s favourite transvestite – is trying to find sense in things and events, or, as he has put it, invent meaning in a meaningless world.

Disenchantment, Netflix review - Matt Groening show has promise after poor start

Owen Richards Friday, 17 August 2018

It’s an event that only comes around once a generation: a new Matt Groening TV series. The Simpsons is rightly regarded as one of the greatest shows ever made. It changed the face of American television, and 10 years later was followed Futurama, a series that may lack the cross-demographic appeal of its predecessor, but consistently produced satirical masterpieces.

On the Edge, Channel 4, review - fast and furious new dramas

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 15 August 2018

Television drama is living through a golden age, yes, but one thing mainly absent from the vast choice available on terrestrial and streaming broadcasters alike is the short story. Short dramas used to be a regular fixture on television, when schedules were more fluid and pre-satellite channels less risk-averse.

Murder in Soho: Who Killed Freddie Mills?, BBC Four review - cold case solved?

Jasper Rees Thursday, 02 August 2018

They don’t make boxers like Freddie Mills any more. A granite lump of grinning charisma, he had a brow and jawline straight from a kids’ cartoon and, despite his humble origins and thuggish contours, a charmingly well-to-do voice. Mills was light heavyweight world champ for a time, then drifted into showbiz and, eventually, running a nightclub in Soho. Then he died in sudden and mysterious circumstances.