Cosy catastrophe
When the apocalypse comes, I want it to be scripted by a 1970s screenwriter. That’s my conclusion after watching the…
Marathon man
I’ve not been allowed anywhere near the TV remote control this week because of some kind of infernal sporting event…
The totalitarian handbook
How to Become a Tyrant(Netflix) is ideal history TV for Generation No Attention Span. Presented in six bite-sized chunks by…
The best thing on TV ever
I’ve been trying to avoid the house TV room as much as possible recently because it tends to be occupied…
Agricultural revolution
I was at a party the other day when who should accost me but Jeremy Clarkson. There were lots more…
The only way is Israel
Tragically it wasn’t my turn to review when Channel 5’s groundbreaking Anne Boleyn came out so you’ll never find out…
Skins in togas
I’ve been looking at the reviews so far of Sky’s new Romans series Domina and none seems to have noticed…
Under the radar
I’d been expecting the BBC to make a dreadful hash of The Pursuit of Love, especially when I read that…
‘Where are the Rambos?’
James Delingpole talks to comic-book writer Mark Millar about the joy of Catholicism, our sorry lack of male action figures and his childhood superpower
My rekindled love for the BBC
Here’s a thought that will make you feel old. Or worried. Or both. The poke-fun-at-celebrity-houses series Through the Keyhole —…
Ill-judged sanctimony
I’m really not enjoying Your Honor, the latest vehicle for Bryan Cranston to play a good man driven to the…
So damned French
For the past few weeks I have been binge-watching the Netflix series Call My Agent! (or Dix pour cent, as…
Nothing to see here
Calls is the very antithesis of televisual soma. In fact it’s so jarring and discomfiting and horrible that I think…
The Covid Macguffin
Why do current events read like a bad movie?
Dumb and dumber
Here’s a worried question I want to plant in your head: when is TV drama going to start depicting the…
Three plots for the price of one
ZeroZeroZero is the impossibly exciting new drugs series from Roberto Saviano — the author who gave us perhaps my all-time…
You’ll wish you were gay
To promote his new drama series about Aids in the early 1980s, Russell T. Davies insisted in an interview that…
Perfectly pointless
‘What the world needs now is a black and white pastiche of classic 1950s and 1960s sitcoms reviving two Marvel…
Superb but depraved
The Serpent is the best BBC drama series in ages — god knows how it slipped through the net —…
Pure genius
Of all the times and places to have been on the wrong side of history, I can’t imagine many worse…
Media Notes
Where are all the journalists? Please could someone just clarify a point of law for me: is theft no longer…
Drama gold or bullion dross?
Unlike with every other BBC period drama series these days, I didn’t have to sit through Small Axe: Mangrove grumbling…
The Crown’s depiction of Thatcher is grotesque
My favourite The Crown blooper so far was the one recently spotted by a Telegraph reader: ‘As Head of the…
Marriage of inconvenience
‘We have to stop it now!’ says Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), smoking another cigarette, obviously. She’s talking about the…
Spit and no polish
Thank you, Spitting Image, for the nostalgia trip! Your new series on BritBox has rekindled with almost Proustian fidelity those…
