Goodwill will not save Claudia Winkleman’s new chat show
Claudia Winkleman has a chat show on the BBC. I’m struggling to understand why this is a story but I…
Life could be worse – you could be Jonathan Ross
‘Oh dear, you look like an old person,’ said Girl, greeting me in the interval of the Bach choir’s St…
Enjoyably old-fashioned: ITV’s The Lady reviewed
I lasted all of five minutes with Netflix’s tasting menu-length Being Gordon Ramsay. This surprised me, because I’ve long had…
The BBC’s Lord of the Flies is mesmerically brilliant
I don’t much like Lord of the Flies. It’s nasty, weird in an oblique, psychotic way and wrong. William Golding…
Gripping: Amazon Prime’s The Tank reviewed
I don’t know how it got past the increasingly powerful ‘All Germans were evil Nazis’ censors but Amazon has released…
Why has it all gone wrong for The Night Manager?
The Night Manager is finally back after ten years with three major drawbacks: no Elizabeth Debicki for the sex scenes;…
Enough with torture-porn TV
Has anyone got to the end of Malice yet? I’m halfway through – at the time of writing, anyway –…
The key to Midsomer Murders’ enduring appeal
If dramas like Adolescence are the rough televisual equivalent of whoever won the latest Turner Prize, then Midsomer Murders (ITV1)…
The Beast in Me is surprisingly addictive
The Beast in Me is one of those ‘taut psychological thrillers’ that everyone talks about in the office. This might…
Pluribus is a mess
Pluribus is another drama set in the dystopian future. But on this occasion the integrity of the entire human race…
Film and TV are run by satanists
I once came up with a brilliant idea for a children’s Sunday-evening TV series. It would follow the adventures of…
A great comedy about a terrible sport
I’m trying to think of things I’m less interested in than American football. The plant-based food section? Taking up my…
Excruciating: Netflix’s House of Guinness reviewed
First the surprising news: not a single one of the four Guinness siblings in 1868 Dublin is black; and only…
Believe it or not, Russia is great
I have been invited to Moscow by the Russian Orthodox patriarchate because the organiser is a fan of my podcast.…
Netflix’s Hostage is an act of cultural aggression
Apart from hunting, one of the very few consolations of the end of summer is that telly stops being quite…
Alien: Earth is wantonly disrespectful to the canon
I once spent a delightful weekend in Madrid with the co-producer of Alien. His name was David Giler (now dead,…
I love how awful My Oxford Year is
The punters are saying My Oxford Year is a disaster. ‘Predictable, uninspiring and laughable,’ complains some meanie on Rotten Tomatoes.…
Worth watching for Momoa’s gibbous-moon buttocks alone
If you enjoyed Apocalypto – that long but exciting Mel Gibson movie about natives being chased through the jungle with…
Long live YouTube! It has been good to conspiracists like me
Even though I loathe almost all forms of technology and would happily disinvent the lot (apart, possibly, from airships which…
The demise of South Park
President Trump has a very small willy. His boyfriend is Satan. He’s a con man who will sue you for…
Turgid, vacuous, portentous: The Sandman reviewed
One of the great things about getting older is no longer feeling under any obligation to try to like stuff…
The Simpsons may be genius – but it’s also evil
Marge Simpson is dead. But does anyone care? I’ve written loads of pieces over the years about the genius of…
Style, wit and pace: Netflix’s Dept. Q reviewed
Can you imagine how dull a TV detective series set in a realistic Scottish police station would be? Inspector Salma…
Excruciating: Sirens reviewed
You had a narrow escape this week. I was about to urge you to watch Sirens, the latest iteration of…
If you are of a certain age, you’ll really enjoy Tina Fey’s The Four Seasons
The Four Seasons is one of those shows you notice in the ‘Top TV Programmes on Netflix’ section, see it’s…
