Adultery is TV drama by numbers – and I’m hooked
The unequivocally titled Adultery began with a somewhat portentous voiceover. ‘There is a psychological equation,’ it intoned. ‘Attraction plus an…
BBC1’s Time isn’t subtle – but it’s still riveting
Jimmy McGovern is a writer whose sleeve is rarely heart-free. Since cutting his teeth on Brookside in the early 1980s,…
Spectator Competition: Jolie laide
For Competition 3470, you were invited to submit a very pretty lyric poem about something ugly or unpleasant. Purely as…
War is as good as Succession
In his ruefully funny 2012 novel The Man Who Forgot His Wife, John O’Farrell compares the increasingly uncivilised process of…
The disappointment of 70 Up (so far)
In advance, I confidently imagined that 70 Up would be the big programme of the week. In the event, it…
Is Alley Cats really that bad?
We first saw Sybylla, the heroine (in every sense) of My Brilliant Career, at a society gathering in 1900 Australia…
Always second but actually invincible: Agrippa, by Robert Harris, reviewed
The Roman general’s inner life is a blank, as Harris admits – but filling it with memories of military campaigns and aqueduct-building doesn’t make for the liveliest story
The new Spider-Man is a triumph of Hollywood professionalism
Remember Peter Parker? By the end of the last instalment of the Spider-Man movies, No Way Home, we were the…
The invincibility of menopausal women in TV drama
Ride or Die began with a typical day for a fiftysomething woman in a TV drama. Having assassinated a Russian…
The blackly comic life of Katie Price
These days, the 1990s seem to be regarded – especially by people too young to remember them – as a…
An enjoyably honest portrait of Rik Mayall
If you’ve tended to think Rik Mayall was both very funny and quite annoying, it turns out you’re not alone…
Another thriller, another teenage incel
At just over two hours, Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear was 20 minutes longer than the 1962 original.…
Undeniably stirring: Dear England reviewed
James Graham has said in interviews that he regards Gareth Southgate as ‘a hero for the ages’. Even if he…
The BBC at its nation-unifying best
Children of the Blitz began with the surprising news – to me anyway – that while 800,000 British children in…
In a fairer world, The Cage would receive a lot more attention than Half Man
Half Man, Richard Gadd’s follow-up to the all-conquering Baby Reindeer, began with approximately ten seconds of some people at a…
Big Mistakes is hysterical – but not in a good way
When following up a successful sitcom, should a writer head off into new territory or not? That was the question…
Over-cautious and clumsy: The Downfall of Huw Edwards reviewed
It’s not easy for a drama to be over-cautious and clumsy at the same time. Or to turn a real-life…
Charming: The Other Bennet Sister reviewed
The Other Bennet Sister is to Pride and Prejudice what Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is to Hamlet.…
Bonkers: Young Sherlock reviewed
Judging from the two biggest new streaming dramas around, the taste these days runs towards the kitchen sink – not…
Foot-to-the-floor entertainment: How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, Lisa McGee’s sequel to Derry Girls, reviewed
How do you follow a great sitcom? Judging from How to Get to Heaven from Belfast and Small Prophets, the…
Fascinating: The Fabulous Funeral Parlour reviewed
The Fabulous Funeral Parlour ended with possibly the least necessary caption in TV history: ‘Filmed in Liverpool’. Whenever I go…
The worst Agatha Christie adaptation I can remember
When it comes to Agatha Christie adaptations, there are normally two possible responses to the denouement. One is a deep…
Spectator Competition: Elementary
For Competition 3431, you were invited to submit a passage in which Sherlock Holmes solves one of the great mysteries…
Lucy Worsley’s sleuthing is rather impressive
Lucy Worsley’s Victorian Murder Club opened with its presenter unexpectedly channelling that gravelly voiced bloke who used to do all…
The cardinals spill the beans on the conclave
Secrets of the Conclave seemed rather optimistically titled, given that everybody at this year’s papal election had made a solemn…
