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Natural World: The Super Squirrels, BBC Two review - silliness and facts

Katherine Waters Wednesday, 20 June 2018

Squirrels are a breed as diverse as they are ubiquitous: they inhabit environments as extreme as desert and tundra, and all the lush greenery, rainforest and urban jungle imaginable between. So bless the producers of The Super Squirrels who humorously avoid a straight-down-the-line profile of the nearly 300 species around the world and instead showcase their not inconsiderable abilities through a series of gleeful reality TV piss-takes.

Julius Caesar, BBC Four review - electrifying TV launch of all-women Shakespeare trilogy

David Nice Monday, 18 June 2018

Who would have thought, when Phyllida Lloyd's Donmar Julius Caesar opened to justified fanfare, that two more Shakespeare masterpieces would be sustained no less powerfully within the women's-prison context over the following years?

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Panorama: Putin's Russia with David Dimbleby, BBC One review - jolly football weather

Tom Birchenough Thursday, 14 June 2018

There was a lovely moment at the beginning of this Panorama where David Dimbleby was chatting to a schoolgirl – not just any schoolgirl actually, because she came from a family of 10 children, which surely makes her a bit out of the ordinary, even in...

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Get Shorty, Sky Atlantic review - Elmore Leonard meets Tarantino

Mark Sanderson Thursday, 14 June 2018

Emma Daly (Carolyn Dodd) tells her estranged husband Miles (Chris O’Dowd): “There is always an angle, a shakedown.” Of course there is: Davey Holmes’s Get Shorty is “partly based on” the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name (“inspired by” would be more accurate).

Hidden, BBC Four review - a death in Snowdonia

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 10 June 2018

Nordic shmordic. Why travel to Scandinavia to get your dark, disturbing mysteries when you can find them in Wales? You even get subtitles for an extra frisson of otherness.

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Our Girl, Series 4, BBC One review - 2 Section versus Boko Haram

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 06 June 2018

I’ve never been in the Army, but I can’t imagine anybody involved with the making of Our Girl (BBC One) has either.

Line of Separation, All 4, review - handsome if soapy epic

Jasper Rees Saturday, 02 June 2018

You don’t see a lot of German drama imported to British television. France, Italy, Scandinavia, yes. But the biggest country in Europe is less of a player. The great exception – and it really was great - was Deutschland 83, a thrilling hit when shown on Channel 4.

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Africa: A Journey Into Music, BBC Four review - too little, too late?

Peter Culshaw Saturday, 02 June 2018

BBC Four is the TV music equivalent of those oldsters music mags like Q and Mojo. Have there been five, or is it six, documentaries about Queen on the channel?

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Peter Kay's Car Share: The Finale, BBC Two review - happy ever after?

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 29 May 2018

Would it be happy ever after for John and Kayleigh? Would they or would they not drive off into the sunset? By the end they weren’t driving off anywhere. Thanks to an errant hedgehog, the finale of Peter Kay’s Car Share (BBC One) turned into Peter Kay’s Car Crash and blew the bloody doors off. So they went home holding hands on the bus.