mon 18/08/2025

tv

Homeland, Series 7 Finale, Channel 4 review - Russian roulette

Adam Sweeting

In a manner uncannily reminiscent of last year’s Season 6, this latest edition of Homeland spent at least half the series trying to get warmed up for the dash to the tape over the final furlongs.

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Ballet's Dark Knight - Sir Kenneth MacMillan, BBC Four review – hagiography and home videos

Hanna Weibye

If you came to this programme knowing nothing about the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, you may have learned a few things. That he died, tragically and rather dramatically, of a massive heart attack during a first night performance of one his own ballets. That he was "interested" in sex and death, and frequently choreographed violent forms of both in his ballets.

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Friday Night Dinner, Channel 4 review - predictable but fun

Veronica Lee

The Goodmans are back - for a fifth (and rumoured possibly to be the last) series of Friday Night Dinner, Robert Popper’s deliciously daft comedy set in a secular Jewish household in north London and based on the Peep Show producer's own upbringing.

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Jazz Ambassadors, BBC Four review - the cool war

Matthew Wright

As the ice hardened in the Cold War of the mid-1950s, and the USSR mocked the USA for both its supposed barbarism and racial segregation, the representative from Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell Jr, had a bright idea.

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Syria: The World's War, BBC Two review - anatomy of a conflict, brilliantly told

Tom Birchenough

This was not a film that left you with much respect for the wisdom of politicians, but perhaps its truest line came from John Kerry, when he called the ongoing – seven years, and counting – Syrian conflict “an insult to the humanity of this planet”.

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Jeff Beck: Still on the Run, BBC Four review - a legend without portfolio

Adam Sweeting

As Aerosmith’s guitarist Joe Perry put it, “there’s a certain amount of fuck you-ness in everything Jeff does.” Perhaps it’s this which has allowed Jeff Beck to achieve the rare feat of surviving into his seventies as what you might describe as a guitar legend without portfolio.

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The Split, BBC One, review - Abi Morgan’s densely packed divorce drama

Jasper Rees

A few years ago Abi Morgan was everywhere. For the cinema she scripted Shame, The Iron Lady, The Invisible Woman and Suffragette. On television she adapted Birdsong and created The Hour and, most recently, River. But she’s mainly been quiet for a couple of years.

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Westworld, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - big trouble in synthetic paradise

Adam Sweeting

Some critics complain that Westworld is too complicated for its own good, and you can see their point.

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The Woman in White, BBC One review - camp Victoriana

Katherine Waters

The BBC excels at a very particular kind of drama, namely one where production values overawe dramatic content. Its version of The Woman in White (BBC One) proves no exception. Our hero is Walter, a bemused sappy painter played by ex-Eastender Ben Hardy.

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Home From Home, BBC One review - Johnny Vegas as everyman hero

Veronica Lee

Home From Home, written by newcomers Chris Fewtrell and Simon Crowther, first saw life as a pilot in the BBC’s Landmark Sitcom Season in 2016, the channel's search for new and original content for its schedules. Well, new it may be, but original it ain’t – yet don’t let that put you off. It’s a decent enough run-through of several sitcom tropes, with Johnny Vegas as its everyman hero.

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