Television
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,…
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,…
Hunted blows a fresh breeze through the stale world of reality TV
Television used to employ entertainers to entertain the public. Back then you could count the channels on the fingers of…
Hunted blows a fresh breeze through the stale world of reality TV
Television used to employ entertainers to entertain the public. Back then you could count the channels on the fingers of…
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…
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…
Independents’ day
I really hadn’t meant to write a postscript to last week’s column on my dark Supertramp past. But then along…
Independents’ day
I really hadn’t meant to write a postscript to last week’s column on my dark Supertramp past. But then along…
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,’…
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,’…
Socialist Cluedo
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
Socialist Cluedo
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
Cock and bull
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
Cock and bull
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
Lifting the veil
Finally I realise why women are so pissed off. It all goes back to the first codified laws — circa…
Lifting the veil
Finally I realise why women are so pissed off. It all goes back to the first codified laws — circa…
Will he was
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
Will he was
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
Poldark porn
My favourite moment in The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2, Monday) was when the heroine played by Natalie Dormer was shown…
Poldark porn
My favourite moment in The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2, Monday) was when the heroine played by Natalie Dormer was shown…
Sick and tired
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
Sick and tired
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
Nuclear overreaction
When I was growing up in the 1970s, my three main fears were: being blown up by the IRA; being…
Nuclear overreaction
When I was growing up in the 1970s, my three main fears were: being blown up by the IRA; being…
Affairs in squares
On all those comic lists of the world’s shortest books (Great Italian War Heroes, My Hunt for the Real Killers,…
