Television

Succession works because the writers don’t care about the boring business storylines

1 April 2023 9:00 am

I have a theory that many great artists’ strength is a product of their weakness. The flaw of the relentlessly…

Makes a change to see such reassuringly competent policemen: ITV1’s Grace reviewed

25 March 2023 9:00 am

Sunday-night dramas on the two main terrestrial channels definitely aren’t what they used to be. Not so long ago, you…

What a gloriously easy living Chris Rock makes from his comedy

18 March 2023 9:00 am

Chris Rock was paid $20 million for his 70-minute Netflix special, so by my reckoning his riff on whether or…

Watch some liars claim that youth and beauty don’t go together

11 March 2023 9:00 am

Back in 1990, Grandpa from The Simpsons wrote a letter of protest to TV-makers. ‘I am disgusted with the way…

In defence of the fabrications of reality TV

4 March 2023 9:00 am

My new favourite tennis player, just ahead of Novak Djokovic, is Nick Kyrgios. Up until recently I’d barely heard of…

Riveting and titillating: BBC2’s Parole reviewed

25 February 2023 9:00 am

There’s a distinct and rather cunning whiff of cakeism about the new documentary series Parole. On the one hand, it…

What I love about Netflix’s Kleo is that it’s so damned German

18 February 2023 9:00 am

I was almost tempted not to watch Kleo because it sounded like so many things I’d seen before: beautiful ex-Stasi…

Joking aside

11 February 2023 9:00 am

Nick Hornby’s 2014 novel Funny Girl was both a heartfelt defence and a convincing example of what popular entertainment can…

Classy but constrained by its video game origins: Sky’s The Last of Us reviewed

4 February 2023 9:00 am

The Last of Us is widely being hailed as the best video game adaptation ever. Maybe. But it’s still a…

A ‘look at these funny people’ doc that could have been presented by any TV hack: Grayson Perry’s Full English reviewed

28 January 2023 9:00 am

For around a decade now, Grayson Perry has been making reliably thoughtful and entertaining documentary series about such things as…

Heist drama with a novelty spin that isn’t very novel: Netflix’s Kaleidoscope reviewed

18 January 2023 10:00 pm

Kaleidoscope is a fairly routine eight-part heist drama with a supposed novelty spin: apart from the beginning and the end,…

Guiltily compelling: Spector, on Sky Documentaries, reviewed

14 January 2023 9:00 am

On 3 February 2003, the emergency services in Los Angeles received a call. ‘I’m Phil Spector’s driver,’ a voice told…

A Turkish dystopia that eludes western censors: Netflix’s Hot Skull reviewed

7 January 2023 9:00 am

A strange new virus has infected half the world but the cure is worse than the disease: authoritarian tyranny, in…

Irresistible: Sky Max’s Christmas Carole reviewed

17 December 2022 9:00 am

What’s wrong with sentimentality? The answer, I’d suggest, could either be: a) its almost bullying insistence on us having emotions…

Fascinating, plausible ideas undermined by Netflix: Ancient Apocalypse reviewed

10 December 2022 9:00 am

Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse has been described by the Guardian as ‘the most dangerous show on Netflix’. What? More dangerous…

A dismaying exercise in nostalgia: Simon Schama’s History of Now reviewed

3 December 2022 9:00 am

For those who consider themselves traditional liberals (full disclosure: such as me) Sunday’s first episode of Simon Schama’s History of…

Repellent: Paramount+’s Tulsa King reviewed

26 November 2022 9:00 am

TV currently abounds with ‘I thought they were dead’ revival projects: series in which your favourite 1980s movie stars are…

Riveting: C4’s Who Stole the World Cup reviewed

19 November 2022 9:00 am

Have you ever seen film of the England 1966 football team holding the World Cup at the Royal Garden Hotel,…

Riveting: Netflix’s The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself reviewed

12 November 2022 9:00 am

Gratingly edgy soundtrack, stomach-churning gore, torture, witchcraft, sadism and an indigestible title. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself sounds…

Refreshingly macho: BBC1’s SAS Rogue Heroes reviewed

5 November 2022 9:00 am

Sunday’s SAS Rogue Heroes – about the founding of perhaps Britain’s most famous regiment – began with a revealing variation…

A Soviet version of Martin Parr: Adam Curtis’s Russia 1985-1999 –TraumaZone reviewed

29 October 2022 9:00 am

Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…

Touchingly free of cynicism: C4's Somewhere Boy reviewed

22 October 2022 9:00 am

At the start of Somewhere Boy, an 18-year-old boy is rescued from an isolated house by his aunt Sue following…

An enjoyable new Ageing Dad drama: Disney+'s The Old Man reviewed

15 October 2022 9:00 am

We men all think we’ve still got it, even when we’re well past 50 and young women look straight through…

The BBC's fairly desperate new reality show: Unbreakable reviewed

8 October 2022 9:00 am

On first impression, you might have thought that Unbreakablewas just a fairly desperate reality show cobbled together from I’m a…

The makers of Fauda have another hit on their hands: Sky Atlantic's Munich Games reviewed

1 October 2022 9:00 am

You’d have to pay me an awful lot more than I get for this column to review Monster: The Jeffrey…