tv
Fatal Attraction, Paramount+ review - Adrian Lyne's bunny-boiler blockbuster expanded onwards and outwardsTuesday, 02 May 2023
Directed by Adrian Lyne, Fatal Attraction was the biggest-grossing film of 1987, and gave the world the term “bunny boiler”. Lyne isn’t aboard for Paramount’s new eight-part series, but the film’s screenwriter James Dearden is a major script contributor alongside the show’s creators Kevin J Hynes and Alexandra Cunningham. Read more... |
Citadel, Prime Video review - did Amazon really pay $300m for this?Sunday, 30 April 2023
The Russo brothers, makers of Amazon Prime’s much-hyped, $300m new spy drama, decided to keep the concept simple – it’s Good versus Evil. In the Good corner we have Citadel, a super-secret global spy network which has the modest ambition of keeping everybody, everywhere in the world, safe. Read more... |
The Diplomat, Netflix review - can London's new American ambassador prevent World War Three?Saturday, 29 April 2023
Does the “special relationship” really exist? Judging by Netflix’s sparky new political drama, yes it does, with London-based CIA agent Eidra Graham (Ali Ahn) going out of her way to spell out the unique intelligence-sharing arrangements between the US and the UK. Just as long as everyone remembers that the Americans are well and truly in charge, nothing can possibly go wrong. Read more... |
Malpractice, ITV1 review - she got into a mess on the NHSMonday, 24 April 2023
This skilfully-woven drama about an NHS doctor being battered by professional and personal pressures is undoubtedly timely, and benefits greatly from being written by Grace Ofori-Attah, a former NHS doctor herself. Her inside knowledge lends weight and verisimilitude to scenes depicting admission procedures or the way the treacherous politics of NHS hierarchies work, and perhaps most significantly, how internal investigations are conducted. Read more... |
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, ITV1 review - Agatha Christie gets a tense and twisty reworking by Hugh LaurieMonday, 10 April 2023
With Magpie Murders currently airing on BBC One, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is another gem from the BritBox stable, where it made its debut last year. Its secret weapon is Hugh Laurie, who’s all over it as screenwriter, director and actor. Read more... |
Magpie Murders, BBC One review - zinging TV adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's bestsellerSaturday, 08 April 2023
Finding a fresh twist on the traditional detective mystery is virtually impossible, but Anthony Horowitz has made a bold stab at it with Magpie Murders. This TV adaptation (which appeared on the BritBox streaming platform last year) has been masterminded by Horowitz from his 2016 bestseller, which ingeniously features two interlocking stories, one set in the present day and one in the 1950s. Read more... |
Rabbit Hole, Paramount+ review - sabotage, subterfuge and corporate skulduggeryMonday, 03 April 2023
Kiefer Sutherland has proved to be a hardy perennial over the decades, from movies like Young Guns and Flatliners to TV shows including Designated Survivor and especially the much-lauded 24. And he seems to have picked another winner with Rabbit Hole. Read more... |
Villeneuve Pironi: Racing's Untold Tragedy, Sky Documentaries review - a macabre slice of motor racing mythologySaturday, 01 April 2023
Netflix’s hit show Drive to Survive has proved that F1 can grab ratings, but Villeneuve Pironi: Racing's Untold Tragedy (Sky Documentaries) is a more esoteric offering. Read more... |
Succession, Season Four, Sky Atlantic review - powerful beginning for the endgameTuesday, 28 March 2023
How much more is there left to be said about the excellence of Succession? It’s back for a final season, and devotees will pore over every detail, every conversational ploy from robust to downright crude, every chess move on this volatile board. As they should, because nothing comparable has appeared on television. Read more... |
Great Expectations, BBC One review - modernised, muddied and muddledMonday, 27 March 2023
There’s no point in being upset with the writer Steven Knight for doing what he usually does; even so, many viewers will find what he has done with Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations far too Peaky for their tastes. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
One wonders what sitcom writers will do when supermarkets finally sweep the last corner shops away with nobody left old enough to buy...
Platonic love should be simple — basically you’re best mates. And without the complications of sex, what could go wrong? Waleed Akhtar, whose big...
Out of emergencies may come revelations. Sir András Schiff has broken his leg, and we wish him a super-speedy recovery. At the Proms, his promised...
Hauntings, memories, echoes: Antonio Pappano has started his official tenure as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra by looking back...
Based on the novel by Elin Hilderbrand, The Perfect...
Anyone who has seen Lee Miller’s photographs – those taken of her in the 1920s when she was a dazzling American beauty, those she took as a...
The latest Greatest Hit to land at the Lyric is Timberlake Wertenbaker’s 1988 award-winning play about a performance of Farquhar’s ...
Going to the theatre can be a little like going to church. One communes on the individual level, one’s faith in the stories...
“I’d know her. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Would I know her? Would I?” John (a brilliant Jared Harris, who’s also an executive producer)...
I made a terrible mistake when I first got this LP: I played it on my laptop speakers. That’s not the straight up foolishness you might think,...