Back in Time for the Weekend gives the 1950s its usual kicking
When the time comes to make programmes looking back on the 2010s, I wonder which aspects of life today will…
Netflix's Making a Murderer is fascinating - but is it true?
On the face of it, the Netflix documentary serial Making a Murderer should only take up ten hours of your…
A morally dubious mix of Candid Camera and Fawlty Towers: Pushed to the Edge reviewed
Never a man tortured by self-doubt, Derren Brown introduced his latest special Pushed to the Edge (Channel 4, Tuesday) as…
Mississippi and the Delta are the high-tar, full strength Deep South
Explore Mississippi and the Delta before they’re rebranded, says James Walton
Dreams don’t have to make sense - but TV dramas do: Peter & Wendy reviewed
On the face of it, ITV’s Peter & Wendy sounded like a perfect family offering for Boxing Day: an adaptation…
Victorian music-hall comedy wasn’t funny. Why pretend it was?
Let’s start this week with a joke: ‘You know Mrs Kelly? Do you know Mrs Kelly? Her husband’s that little…
Everything you always wanted to know about Sixties pop —and more
It might seem an odd choice, but after reading Jon Savage’s new book, I think if I had a time…
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 show 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…
ITV’s Midwinter of the Spirit is a satisfying example of Middle-England Gothic
For years, Ian Fleming was famously self-deprecating about the James Bond books. (‘I have a rule of not looking back,’…
Guns, tools and toffee apples - but no nudity: BBC1’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover reviewed
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
How many royal cliches can you fit into a single Channel 4 documentary?
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
Is medical screening bad for your health? Michael Mosley dons a pair of ‘dignity shorts’ to find out
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
Bohemian conformity can be just as suffocating as any other type: BBC1’s Life in Squares reviewed
On all those comic lists of the world’s shortest books (Great Italian War Heroes, My Hunt for the Real Killers,…
Lucy Worsley reveals - yet again - that there’s more to the WI than jam and Jerusalem
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
Joanna Lumley is ‘thrilled’ by everything, even being spanked by a Mongolian shaman, in her new Trans-Siberian Adventure
For keen students of China, this week’s television provided yet more proof that Deng Xiaoping’s decision to open the country…
Copyright: the great rock’n’roll swindle
For a music fan, the quiz question, ‘Who wrote “This Land is Your Land”?’ might seem laughably easy. Yet if…
As blatant rip-offs go, this one is shaping up nicely: Odyssey, BBC2, reviewed
This week’s Imagine… Jeff Koons: Diary of a Seducer (BBC1, Tuesday) began with Koons telling a slightly puzzled-looking Alan Yentob…
Heroically unoriginal: Channel 4’s Humans reviewed
You’d think scientists might have realised by now that creating a race of super-robots is about as wise as opening…
Imagine if Are You Being Served? had starred Laurence Olivier: ITV’s Vicious reviewed
Monday saw the return of possibly the weirdest TV series in living memory. Imagine a parallel universe in which Are…
A bit silly: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell reviewed
BBC One’s 2015 choice of Sunday-night drama series is beginning to resemble the career of the kind of Hollywood actor…
Channel 4’s No Offence reviewed: ‘hugely entertaining and wildly unconvincing’
With Clocking Off, Shameless and State of Play among his credits, Paul Abbott is undoubtedly one of the most respected…
W1A reviewed: so pitch-perfect as to be profoundly depressing
Ever since the days of Tony Hancock, many of the best British sitcoms — from Dad’s Army to Fawlty Towers,…
Taxi ride to the dark side: a thrilling blast of full-strength Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh, I think it’s safe to say, is not a writer who’s mellowing with age. His latest book sees…
