Television
On the sick list
Sunday-night dramas on the two main terrestrial channels definitely aren’t what they used to be. Not so long ago, you…
A Rock and a hard place
Chris Rock was paid $20 million for his 70-minute Netflix special, so by my reckoning his riff on whether or…
Same old story
Back in 1990, Grandpa from The Simpsons wrote a letter of protest to TV-makers. ‘I am disgusted with the way…
Sporting greats
My new favourite tennis player, just ahead of Novak Djokovic, is Nick Kyrgios. Up until recently I’d barely heard of…
Calling time
There’s a distinct and rather cunning whiff of cakeism about the new documentary series Parole. On the one hand, it…
So damned German
I was almost tempted not to watch Kleo because it sounded like so many things I’d seen before: beautiful ex-Stasi…
Joking aside
Nick Hornby’s 2014 novel Funny Girl was both a heartfelt defence and a convincing example of what popular entertainment can…
Still in the game
The Last of Us is widely being hailed as the best video game adaptation ever. Maybe. But it’s still a…
Procession of eccentrics
For around a decade now, Grayson Perry has been making reliably thoughtful and entertaining documentary series about such things as…
Made to order
Kaleidoscope is a fairly routine eight-part heist drama with a supposed novelty spin: apart from the beginning and the end,…
The strangest figure in pop
On 3 February 2003, the emergency services in Los Angeles received a call. ‘I’m Phil Spector’s driver,’ a voice told…
Turkish delight
A strange new virus has infected half the world but the cure is worse than the disease: authoritarian tyranny, in…
Sentimental value
What’s wrong with sentimentality? The answer, I’d suggest, could either be: a) its almost bullying insistence on us having emotions…
Sheer delight
Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse has been described by the Guardian as ‘the most dangerous show on Netflix’. What? More dangerous…
The glee of hatred
For those who consider themselves traditional liberals (full disclosure: such as me) Sunday’s first episode of Simon Schama’s History of…
The good, the bad and the ugly
TV currently abounds with ‘I thought they were dead’ revival projects: series in which your favourite 1980s movie stars are…
Doggy style
Have you ever seen film of the England 1966 football team holding the World Cup at the Royal Garden Hotel,…
Gross profit
Gratingly edgy soundtrack, stomach-churning gore, torture, witchcraft, sadism and an indigestible title. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself sounds…
Man up
Sunday’s SAS Rogue Heroes – about the founding of perhaps Britain’s most famous regiment – began with a revealing variation…
Dog days of the USSR
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
Motivated by love
At the start of Somewhere Boy, an 18-year-old boy is rescued from an isolated house by his aunt Sue following…
Senior moment
We men all think we’ve still got it, even when we’re well past 50 and young women look straight through…
Paxman on Parkinson’s
On first impression, you might have thought that Unbreakablewas just a fairly desperate reality show cobbled together from I’m a…
Why I love a cliché
You’d have to pay me an awful lot more than I get for this column to review Monster: The Jeffrey…
Bang goes nothing
Crossfire was a three-part drama in more ways than one. Running every night from Tuesday to Thursday, it brought together…
