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…
Net effect
Channel 4’s Cyberbully (Thursday), written by Ben Chanan and David Lobatto, turned out to be a brilliantly gripping drama, even…
Tale of the expected
As a New Year’s Day treat for all the family, Esio Trot (BBC1) seemed to be taking no chances. It…
Ghost town
BBC1’s authentically spooky three-part ghost story Remember Me hasn’t yet revealed what’s really going on in that gloomy Yorkshire town.…
The daily grind of the hunter-gather
In the early days of Victorian railways, train journeys were (rightly) considered so dangerous that ticket offices sold life insurance…
Un-PC Plod
There can’t have been many people who watched Confessions of a Copper (Channel 4, Wednesday) with a growing sense of…
Country folk
Twenty minutes into BBC4’s The Heart of Country (Friday), there was a clip of Chet Atkins, country music’s star producer…
Home again
One of the more welcome and surprising things about television at the moment is that Homeland (Channel 4, Sunday) is…
A glimpse of the limelight
On 5 August 2010, 33 men entered the remote San José mine in Chile’s Atacama desert to begin their 12-hour…
Great leaps forward
Anybody feeling a bit depressed about the shortcomings of humanity could do worse than watch Brian Cox’s new series Human…
Finding a new way to live
In Colm Tóibín’s much-loved 2009 novel Brooklyn, Eilis Lacy, somewhat to her own surprise, leaves 1950s Enniscorthy (Tóibín’s own home…
Husband and wives
Needless to say, it’s not uncommon to hear single British women in their thirties and forties saying that all the…
He’s not joking
At first sight, J — which has beenshortlisted for the Man Booker Prize — represents a significant departure for Howard…
Linked in
For some of us, the biggest TV question of recent weeks hasn’t been how Newsnight is doing without Jeremy Paxman,…
Still crazy after all these years
It says something about Kate Bush’s standing in the music world that, perhaps uniquely in the history of long-awaited live…
Carry on Mumbai
Viewers who like their TV journalism hard-hitting should probably avoid Hotel India, a new BBC2 series about the Taj Mahal…
Remembering what it’s like to forget
In October 2002, 28-year-old David Stuart MacLean woke up at Hyderabad railway station. He was standing at the time, and…
A life derailed
When Haruki Murakami — Japan’s most successful novelist at home and abroad — was interviewed by the Paris Review in…
