Enjoyably contrived: BBC1’s Baptiste reviewed
What’s the best way to start a six-part thriller? The answer, it seems, is to have a bloke of a…
Watch Paxo set a new PB for lip-curling: Paxman On The Queen’s Children reviewed
You might well expect a royal documentary on Channel 5 to be unashamedly gossipy. You might also expect it to…
Danny Dyer’s Right Royal Family might well be the oddest TV show of recent times
Last year on Who Do You Think You Are?, Danny Dyer — EastEnders actor and very possibly Britain’s most cockney…
According to BBC4, what was one of the ‘most important inventions in modern music’?
Here’s a tricky quiz question for you. What word completes this sentence from a BBC4 documentary on Friday: ‘The world…
Dick Clement on Porridge, Kirk Douglas and having seven projects on the go
Given their track record, you might think that Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais would be spared the struggles that…
Could it be that Jimmy McGovern was getting into the festive spirit? No… Care reviewed
Jimmy McGovern’s one-off drama Care (BBC1, Sunday 9 December) began with a loving grandmother called Mary having a lovely time…
Refreshingly understated: BBC1’s Mrs Wilson reviewed
Shortly before her husband’s funeral, the undertaker told the eponymous main character in Mrs Wilson (BBC1, Tuesday) that, ‘We’re here…
How does David Attenborough know what the monkeys are thinking?
The opening episode of BBC1’s Dynasties — the new Attenborough-fronted series from the Natural History Unit — introduced us to…
Lucky the director of Little Drummer Girl is an ‘auteur’ or you might call the first episode corny
The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1, Sunday) is the new John le Carré adaptation from the production company that brought us…
An enjoyably gossipy whisk through half a century of fierce rivalries and bruised egos
At the beginning of Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC4), Kirsty Wark’s voiceover promised…
Impeccably – and intriguingly – unclear: BBC1’s The Cry reviewed
It’s a radical thought I know, but I sometimes wonder what it would be like if a new TV thriller…
Camp, preposterous and weirdly good fun: Killing Eve reviewed
After the all-conquering success of Fleabag — her brilliant dark comedy about a smart but rudderless young woman in London…
Bad news for fans of good TV drama – there’s three more corkers to keep up with
This week was bad news for fans of good television drama series — mainly because there’s now three more of…
Jimmy Page is a Capricorn – that says it all
In 1957, aged 13, Jimmy Page appeared with his skiffle group on a children’s TV programme dedicated to ‘unusual hobbies’…
I had no idea how fascinating rubbish could be: The Secret Life of Landfill reviewed
Not the most beguiling of titles, I admit, but The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (BBC4, Thursday) was…
Full of bog-standard, if annoyingly effective, emotional manipulation: The Foreign Doctors Are Coming reviewed
Surprising I know, but judging from The Foreign Doctors Are Coming (Channel 4, Tuesday), Britain mightn’t be such a bad…
A proper old-fashioned stinker: ITV’s The Bletchley Circle – San Francisco reviewed
After just one episode, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (ITV, Wednesday) seems certain to stand out from the crowd. In…
Fury and excitement – how the journalists at the New York Times have coped with Trump
Back when his country was controlled by the USSR, the Czech writer Milan Kundera pointed out that ‘Union of Soviet…
Exhilaratingly original, C4’s Flowers is much more than just a ‘dark comedy’
On Wednesday, BBC Four made an unexpectedly strong case that the human body is a bit rubbish. Our ill-designed spines,…
Never Anyone But You, by Rupert Thomson reviewed
In a 2013 interview with a Canadian newspaper, Rupert Thomson acknowledged the strange place he occupies in the literary world.…
Understated and heartbreaking: BBC2’s King Lear reviewed
I recently came across a theory of the American poet Delmore Schwartz’s that Hamlet only makes sense if you assume…
Sky Atlantic’s Patrick Melrose adaptation is triumphant
Warning: if you haven’t seen it yet, the first episode of the much-anticipated Patrick Melrose (Sky Atlantic, Sunday) contains scenes…
Zen tales and flights of fancy: Patient X reviewed
The target audience for David Peace’s new novel appears almost defiantly niche. Certainly, any readers in the embarrassing position of…
From now on you can assume that every TV-drama cast is female-led
From time to time, a TV show comes along which is so thrillingly original, so wildly imaginative, that you can’t…
Jaw-dropping: My Year with the Tribe reviewed
For a while now, the Korowai people of Western Papua have been the go-to primitive tribe for documentary-makers. The Korowai…
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