Gothic lives matter: BBC2’s Civilisations reviewed
Anybody growing weary of the debate surrounding the BBC’s unexamined assumptions and biases about modern politics might have expected to…
Bleak but gripping: Channel 4’s Trespasses reviewed
Yeats famously summarised Ireland in the four words, ‘Great hatred, little room’. But, as Louise Kennedy’s 2022 debut novel Trespasses…
The joy of Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
If you didn’t already know that Down Cemetery Road was based on a novel Mick Herron wrote before the Slough…
Is there anything menopausal women can’t do?
Is there anything menopausal women can’t do (on television)? Last Sunday, as a couple of them were still working on…
Every line in the new Alan Partridge is perfect
By now, viewers of TV thrillers are no strangers to a baffling prologue – but this week brought a particularly…
Mr Bates this isn’t: The Hack reviewed
As we know, when terrestrial television has a big new hit these days, its response – once it’s got over…
The makers of Doc don’t seem to trust the show
The drama series Doc began with the most literal of bangs. While the screen remained black, the sound-effects team knocked…
Lower your expectations for Spinal Tap II
This Is Spinal Tap is now such a deserved comedy behemoth that it’s easy to forget how gradual its ascent…
Another Traitors rip-off – and it might be even better than the original: Channel 4’s The Inheritance reviewed
Another week, another show striving desperately to become the new Traitors. So it is that The Inheritance brings a group…
Spectator Competition: All grown up
For Competition 3410 you were invited to imagine a celebrated character from a children’s book in later life. There were…
The power of BBC’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North
It’s been a good week for fans of TV dramas that are set partly in Syria, feature poetry-lovers confronting extreme…
How to holiday White Lotus-style: Billionaire Playground reviewed
Today’s television is notably fond of presenting us with very rich people to both despise and wish we lived like.…
None of Mitfords sound posh enough: Outrageous reviewed
There aren’t many dramas featuring the rise of the Nazis that could be described as jaunty, but Outrageous is one.…
Channel 4’s Beth is a sad glimpse into the future of terrestrial TV
On the face of it, Beth seemed that most old-fashioned of TV genres: the single play. In fact, Monday’s programme…
Why is the BBC making stuff up about Jane Austen?
Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius began by saying that ‘getting into her mind isn’t easy’ – something you’d never…
Tantalisingly ambiguous – or just plain baffling: Hallow Road reviewed
An 80-minute film which for almost all of the time features two people in a car mightn’t sound particularly ambitious.…
How come the only Palestinians Louis Theroux met were non-violent sweeties?
Louis Theroux: The Settlers was never likely to be a programme with much of a narrative arc – and so…
Good lawyers make for bad TV
Given that TV cameras aren’t allowed to film British criminal trials, Channel 4’s new documentary series Barristers: Fighting for Justice…
How fun is it being part of an Amazonian tribe?
Tribe with Bruce Parry ran for three fondly remembered series in the mid-2000s. Now, upgraded to Tribe with Bruce Parry,…
Netflix’s Adolescence is seriously flawed
Bradley Walsh: Egypt’s Cosmic Code may sound like a pitch by Alan Partridge – but, impressively, the programme itself manages…
Anjelica Huston is comprehensively upstaged in the BBC’s new Agatha Christie
Coincidentally, two of this week’s big new dramas began with a fourth wall-busting declaration of their narrative methods. At the…
The White Lotus is off to a shaky start
The White Lotus, now back for a third series, could perhaps be best described as Death in Paradise for posh…
Stately, sly and well-mannered: BBC1’s Miss Austen reviewed
It is a truth universally acknowledged that lazy journalists begin every piece about Jane Austen with the words ‘It is…
Certainly intriguing: Apple TV+’s Prime Target reviewed
Needless to say, there have been any number of thrillers that rely on what Alfred Hitchcock called a MacGuffin: something,…
Leavisites should stay away: Sky’s Bad Tidings reviewed
Reviewing Sky’s The Heist before Christmas last year, I suggested that all feature-length festive television dramas begin with credits announcing…
