mon 28/07/2025

tv

100 Year Old Driving School, ITV review – a warning with history

Barney Harsent

While Horizon, on BBC2, was telling us that the first person to walk on Mars could well be walking among us now, ITV's 100 Year Old Driving School suggested that the space mission could take a major setback if that wannabe astronaut were to encounter Joan Beech on the roads.

Read more...

Rellik, BBC One review - tricksy procedural messes with time

Jasper Rees

There are two Williams brothers – Jack and Harry – who are mainly known for two series of The Missing. No chance of the Williamses going missing. Quite the reverse. As of today – Monday 11 September – they seem to have cloned.

Read more...

Liar, ITV - who, if anybody, is telling the truth?

Adam Sweeting

Could handsome, successful, designer-stubbly Ioan Gruffudd really be a rapist? Yes, according to schoolteacher Laura Nielson (Joanne Froggatt). No, according to Gruffudd’s character Andrew Earlham, a distinguished surgeon and widower apparently horrified to be accused of such a thing.

Read more...

Tin Star, Sky Atlantic - broken characters stalked by remorseless fate

Adam Sweeting

Sometimes you can find yourself hankering after those old-fashioned TV dramas where you got a self-contained story every week, so you can drop in on it at any time and still keep up with what’s going on. With Tin Star, on the other hand, you need to stick with it for at least four episodes before the scope of the story begins to reveal itself and it starts to exert a painful grip.

Read more...

Cold Feet, series 7, ITV review - more comedy than drama

Barney Harsent

When the ITV comedy drama Cold Feet returned last year after a 13-year break, it seemed something of a risk. Looking back, after the near-universal acclaim and excellent viewing figures, it’s difficult to think it could have been anything but a sure-fire hit.

Read more...

Safe House, series 2, ITV review - the abduction and captivity show returns

Mark Sanderson

Forget Christopher Eccleston and the Lake District. Two years on, Ed Whitmore’s ready-mix thriller Safe House returns with Stephen Moyer in Merseyside.

Read more...

Doctor Foster, Series 2, BBC One review - belief suspended for a pacy and tense return

Barney Harsent

They say that living well is the best revenge. To be fair, they also say it’s a dish best served cold and I’m pretty sure they’re thinking of gazpacho, so I’m not entirely clear how much real meaning is to be found in these dictums.

Read more...

Imagine... Alma Deutscher: Finding Cinderella, BBC One review - beguiling profile of a musical prodigy

graham Rickson

Morag Tinto’s documentary is a profile of composer Alma Deutscher, who hit the headlines at the end of last year when her opera based on the Cinderella story premiered in...

Read more...

Top of the Lake: China Girl, BBC Two, series finale review - torpor not trauma

Mark Sanderson

So who killed Cinnamon? Six weeks ago we saw the strangled sex-worker – packed in a pink suitcase – pushed into Bondi Bay. The finale of Top of the Lake: China Girl withheld enlightenment. Puss, the chief suspect, denied responsibility. Why would the baby-farmer destroy such a valuable (pregnant) asset?

Read more...

Educating Greater Manchester, Channel 4 review - a study of hope, humanity and heart

Barney Harsent

Cast your minds back, if you will, to 2011. Remember Jamie Oliver’s Celebrity Fight School?

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Inter Alia, National Theatre review - dazzling performance,...

Rosamund Pike is back. For her first stage appearance since 2010, when she played Hedda Gabler in Adrian Noble’s production for Bath Theatre Royal...

The Waterfront, Netflix review - fish, drugs and rock'n...

You wouldn’t really want to belong to the Buckley family, a star-crossed dynasty who run their fishing business out of Havenport,...

The Fantastic Four: First Steps review - innocence regained

Marvel goes back to its origins, gulping the fresh air of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s first hit comic The Fantastic Four in 1961. Ignoring...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Pale Fountains - The Complete Vir...

The Pale Fountains played their first live show on 12 February 1980 as the support to on-the-up fellow...

Giselle, National Ballet of Japan review - return of a class...

A new Giselle? Not quite: the production that ...

Buxton International Festival 2025 review - a lavish offerin...

The Buxton International Festival this year was lavish in its smaller-scale productions in addition to Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, the...

Eddie Pepitone, Special review - return of the curmudgeon

There aren’t many comics like Eddie Pepitone any more – the veteran comic’s shtick harks to back an earlier age, pre-suitable for TV...

Album: Indigo de Souza - Precipice

Indigo de Souza, a singer from North Carolina, has established some reputation, mostly in the States, for combining...