mon 18/08/2025

tv

Age Before Beauty, BBC One review - mid-life makeover madness

Adam Sweeting

If you were looking for the antidote to Love Island, this might be just the job.

Read more...

Hidden, Series Finale, BBC Four review - a whydunnit, not a whodunnit

Adam Sweeting

Some contend that this Snowdonia-set mystery was a Scandi hommage too far, a mere recycler of gloom-shrouded riffs familiar from the likes of The Bridge or The Killing. Well yes, there was that element to it, but if you stuck with it it grew into far more than a mere copycat procedural.

Read more...

The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, ITV review - the ludicrous in search of the preposterous

Adam Sweeting

Belatedly picking up from where series 2 of The Bletchley Circle left off in 2014, this comeback version has a go at transporting a couple of the original characters to the Californian West Coast, where they embroil themselves in the hunt for that old chestnut, a serial killer.

Read more...

Who Is America?, Channel 4 review - sudden return of Sacha Baron Cohen

Adam Sweeting

Cunningly kept under wraps until the last moment, Sacha Baron Coen’s new show is a timely reminder of his gift for trampling the boundaries of good taste and decorum.

Read more...

Unforgotten, Series 3, ITV review - death on the M1

Adam Sweeting

So it’s back to London’s Bishop Street police station for a third series of screenwriter Chris Lang’s cold case saga.

Read more...

Keeping Faith, BBC One review - this summer's watercooler drama

Owen Richards

How well do you know the person you love? Are they someone completely different when you’re not around? This is the central question Eve Myles (main picture) has to answer in the BBC’s latest mystery drama.

Read more...

Picnic at Hanging Rock, BBC One review - camp girls' school gothic

Jasper Rees

How many people were watching Picnic at Hanging Rock as it took its bow on BBC One? This opening episode happened to be preceded by a rival attraction on ITV.

Read more...

Sharp Objects, Sky Atlantic review - Amy Adams battles her demons

Adam Sweeting

Based on the novel by Gillian Flynn (author of Gone Girl) and directed by Jean-Marc Valleé (who helmed last year’s award-winning Big Little Lies), HBO’s Sharp Objects arrives trailing a cloud of great expectations.

Read more...

Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars, BBC Two review - blues, booze and dues

Adam Sweeting

There’s undoubtedly a memorable film to be crafted from the life of guitar legend and grand old survivor Eric Clapton – for instance, Melvyn Bragg made a very good South Bank Show about him in 1987 – but the longer this one goes on, the less it has to say. Nor is it obvious why it has been made now.

Read more...

Duran Duran: There's Something You Should Know / A Night In, BBC Four, review - chaps on film

Jasper Rees

Forty years on. You could have got attractive odds on Duran Duran still being here when, on a yacht carving the seas off Antigua, a cream-suited Simon Le Bon mimed “Rio” astride an unapologetically phallic bowsprit. “A ripple in a stagnant pool,” sniffed the NME upon first catching them live.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
BBC Proms: Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet review - super-sized...

There’s a Proms paradox that’s familiar to Early Music fans....

Gibby Haynes, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - ex-Butthole...

Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or...

Album: Adrian Sherwood - The Collapse of Everything

UK dub maestro and producer, Adrian Sherwood is hardly what...

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Residents - American Composer...

George & James was originally released in March 1984. Stars & Hank Forever! emerged in October 1986. The two LPs were...

Frang, Romaniw, Liverman, LSO, Pappano, Edinburgh Internatio...

Right from the bracing brass fanfare that began this Sea Symphony, you know exactly where you were: right in the midst of the deck, with...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Ordinary Decent Criminal / In...

Ordinary Decent Criminal, Summerhall ...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Emmanuel Sonubi / Joz Norris

Emmanuel Sonubi, Pleasance Courtyard ...

Album: Dinosaur Pile-Up - I've Felt Better

The history of popular music is littered with bands who...