Why most four-year-olds deserve to be sectioned
The first episode of Let Us Entertain You (BBC2, Wednesday) definitely couldn’t be accused of lacking a central thesis. Presenter…
The Last Kingdom is BBC2’s solemnly cheesy answer to Game of Thrones
The opening caption for The Last Kingdom (BBC2, Thursday) read ‘Kingdom of Northumbria, North of England, 866 AD’. In fact,…
Was BBC1’s Rooney hagiography more scripted reality than documentary?
Close to the Edge (BBC4, Tuesday) feels very much like an idea conceived during a particularly good night in the…
Talk of the devil
For years, Ian Fleming was famously self-deprecating about the James Bond books. (‘I have a rule of not looking back,’…
Cock and bull
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
Will he was
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
Sick and tired
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
Affairs in squares
On all those comic lists of the world’s shortest books (Great Italian War Heroes, My Hunt for the Real Killers,…
Institutional feminism
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
Serial thriller
For keen students of China, this week’s television provided yet more proof that Deng Xiaoping’s decision to open the country…
One helluva racket
For a music fan, the quiz question, ‘Who wrote “This Land is Your Land”?’ might seem laughably easy. Yet if…
The bankers’ darling
This week’s Imagine… Jeff Koons: Diary of a Seducer (BBC1, Tuesday) began with Koons telling a slightly puzzled-looking Alan Yentob…
Bad robots
You’d think scientists might have realised by now that creating a race of super-robots is about as wise as opening…
Are you being funny?
Monday saw the return of possibly the weirdest TV series in living memory. Imagine a parallel universe in which Are…
Strange ways
BBC One’s 2015 choice of Sunday-night drama series is beginning to resemble the career of the kind of Hollywood actor…
Not much cop
With Clocking Off, Shameless and State of Play among his credits, Paul Abbott is undoubtedly one of the most respected…
Target practice
Ever since the days of Tony Hancock, many of the best British sitcoms — from Dad’s Army to Fawlty Towers,…
Scabrous lyricism
Irvine Welsh, I think it’s safe to say, is not a writer who’s mellowing with age. His latest book sees…
Comics’ trip
Who says British television lacks imagination? You might have thought, for example, that every possible combination of comedian and travel…
Re-election
In a late schedule change, Channel 4’s Coalition was shifted from Thursday to Saturday to make room for Jeremy Paxman…
The Turner effect
By my calculations, the remake of Poldark (BBC1, Sunday) is the first time BBC drama has returned to Cornwall since…
Here be dragons
If you’d been asked at the beginning of the year whose new novel would feature ogres, pixies and a she-dragon…
What the doctor ordered
Sky1’s new hospital drama Critical (Tuesday) can’t be accused of making a timid start. Within seconds, an urgent request had…
Brief encounter
I lost count long ago of the number of dinner parties and pub conversations where I’ve had to utter the…
The long goodbye
In January 1958, the British government began working on the significantly titled Operation Hope Not: its plans for what to…
