Television
The fibs of Blue Planet III
Whenever I hear the phrase ‘national treasure’ I reach for my shotgun. Take David Attenborough. Yes, he may be impressively…
Adultery is TV drama by numbers – and I’m hooked
The unequivocally titled Adultery began with a somewhat portentous voiceover. ‘There is a psychological equation,’ it intoned. ‘Attraction plus an…
A new BBC series that captures some of the channel’s old values
I watched Smiley’s People on BBC iPlayer recently because I fancied a nostalgia trip back to the days (1982) when…
BBC1’s Time isn’t subtle – but it’s still riveting
Jimmy McGovern is a writer whose sleeve is rarely heart-free. Since cutting his teeth on Brookside in the early 1980s,…
Celebrity Traitors is evil
At the time of writing I’m still in the dark as to whether Richard E. Grant’s Celebrity Traitors gambit –…
War is as good as Succession
In his ruefully funny 2012 novel The Man Who Forgot His Wife, John O’Farrell compares the increasingly uncivilised process of…
The disappointment of 70 Up (so far)
In advance, I confidently imagined that 70 Up would be the big programme of the week. In the event, it…
The Grand Tour is the perfect TV to pass out to
The Grand Tour – aka Amazon does Top Gear – is back with a new trio of presenters. Whether you…
Dalliance almost made me wish I were Australian
Kids, if you’re appalled by the idea of your parents’ generation having sex, look away now. I’m about to describe…
The terror of Russian prisons
The competition must be pretty stiff for ‘World’s worst airport to be caught with drugs in your baggage’: Bogota? Miami?…
Is Alley Cats really that bad?
We first saw Sybylla, the heroine (in every sense) of My Brilliant Career, at a society gathering in 1900 Australia…
The Shards is easily the best drama on TV
My father once drove down the King’s Road with Marianne Faithfull and Terence Stamp in a paisley-painted Mini to buy…
What happened to Gomorrah?
You’re not going to like this and it pains me to say so but Gomorrah: The Origins is not in…
I suspect a lot of TV is AI-generated
AI slop is not a new phenomenon. But it is becoming more prevalent as the lazy, the modish and the…
The invincibility of menopausal women in TV drama
Ride or Die began with a typical day for a fiftysomething woman in a TV drama. Having assassinated a Russian…
In defence of Little House on the Prairie
You can tell things have started to get really bad by the fact that they’re bringing back Little House on…
The blackly comic life of Katie Price
These days, the 1990s seem to be regarded – especially by people too young to remember them – as a…
The World Cup is evil
I tried to think, Pointless-style, of two of the countries least likely to be participating in the world kicky-ball nonsense.…
An enjoyably honest portrait of Rik Mayall
If you’ve tended to think Rik Mayall was both very funny and quite annoying, it turns out you’re not alone…
Clarkson’s Farm remains the best drama on TV
Aliens are very fashionable right now. Steven Spielberg recently announced that they are real and have been visiting us since…
Another thriller, another teenage incel
At just over two hours, Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear was 20 minutes longer than the 1962 original.…
Why I’m increasingly drawn to optimistic sci-fi
You know you’re getting old when you see Geena Davis from Thelma & Louise cast as a granny sex symbol…
Undeniably stirring: Dear England reviewed
James Graham has said in interviews that he regards Gareth Southgate as ‘a hero for the ages’. Even if he…
I’m done with Rivals
Everybody has been raving about Legends, the Netflix series about undercover customs officers in the 1990s busting a heroin ring.…
The BBC at its nation-unifying best
Children of the Blitz began with the surprising news – to me anyway – that while 800,000 British children in…
