Television
Joking aside
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
You’d have to pay me an awful lot more than I get for this column to review Monster: The Jeffrey…
Well-meaning thriller with moments of implausibility: BBC1's Crossfire reviewed
Crossfire was a three-part drama in more ways than one. Running every night from Tuesday to Thursday, it brought together…
The political cunning of Elizabeth II: BBC1's The Longest Reign – The Queen and Her People reviewed
In all the tributes to Her late Majesty’s constancy, dignity, wisdom and devotion to duty, not enough has been said…
Will you be able to get through the ponderous aphorisms without giggling? The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reviewed
Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…
Shaping up nicely for some truly epic bloodletting: House of the Dragon reviewed
House of the Dragon got off to a pretty uninspirational start, I thought: no major characters brought to a shocking…
The fiasco of Operation Yewtree: C4's The Accused – National Treasures on Trial reviewed
At 4.38 a.m., one morning in October 2013, the radio presenter Paul Gambaccini was understandably asleep when the doorbell rang.…
Identity politics is in retreat in Hollywood
‘Diversity is woven into the very soul of the story.’ If those words of praise from a rave review in…
Fascinating but flat: Amazon Prime's Thirteen Lives reviewed
About ten minutes in to Thirteen Lives, Boy came in and asked me whether it was any good. I said:…
