Channel 4
Bleak but gripping: Channel 4’s Trespasses reviewed
Yeats famously summarised Ireland in the four words, ‘Great hatred, little room’. But, as Louise Kennedy’s 2022 debut novel Trespasses…
The NHS is to blame for Bonnie Blue
Channel 4’s documentary begins as the ‘adult content creator’ Bonnie Blue (real name: Tia Billinger, 26, Derbyshire) prepares to beat…
The power of BBC’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North
It’s been a good week for fans of TV dramas that are set partly in Syria, feature poetry-lovers confronting extreme…
Channel 4’s Beth is a sad glimpse into the future of terrestrial TV
On the face of it, Beth seemed that most old-fashioned of TV genres: the single play. In fact, Monday’s programme…
Anjelica Huston is comprehensively upstaged in the BBC’s new Agatha Christie
Coincidentally, two of this week’s big new dramas began with a fourth wall-busting declaration of their narrative methods. At the…
Channel 4 shouldn’t get to decide the next Archbishop
Obviously, it is difficult to defend the leadership of the Church of England, and I am inexperienced in that art;…
Well done to the Channel 4 halfwits
The number of people arriving here in small boats has increased since Sir Keir Starmer was elected Prime Minister on…
A bit of a mess: Channel 4’s Generation Z reviewed
In the second of this week’s two episodes of Generation Z (Sunday and Monday), a teenage girl called Finn wondered…
Ambitious, bold and confusing: BBC4’s Corridors of Power – Should America Police the World? reviewed
Narrated by Meryl Streep, Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? announced the scale of its ambition straight away.…
Nowhere near as miserable as I remember it: The Beatles – Let It Be reviewed
Beatles lore has long held that the film Let It Be was a depressing portrait of the band falling apart.…
Danny Dyer’s new C4 programme is deeply odd
Who do you think said the following on TV this week: ‘I love being around gay men – seeing a…
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…
Rough justice
At 4.38 a.m., one morning in October 2013, the radio presenter Paul Gambaccini was understandably asleep when the doorbell rang.…
Softly, softly
Grizzled police officers of the old school should probably avoid Channel 4’s Night Coppers for reasons of blood pressure. Like…
The Spectator’s Notes
Now that events in Ukraine are restoring a sense of proportion about the difference between aggressive autocracies and free countries,…
Market mischief and bad politicsmean business is never dull
Enough of stagflation forecasts, each more frightening than the last. Enough – for now – of energy policy sermons, as…
How to waste an 80-seat majority
Cast your mind back to Channel 4’s election night programme. The 2019 exit poll results flash up on screen. Realising…
Tory backlash over Channel 4 privatisation
Downing Street’s plan to privatise Channel 4 is already facing a Tory revolt – less than 24 hours after the…
Five hysterical reactions to Channel 4’s sell-off
Roll up, roll up! The great Channel 4 sell-off is now on. The Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, is pushing ahead with…
The root of the matter
Thanks to Covid, the days are gone — or at least suspended — when a TV travel programme meant a…
A spoonful of Sugar
Murder Island features eight real-life ‘ordinary people’ seeking to solve a fictional killing on a fictional Scottish island. What follows…
Top of the chocs
Last Sunday on Channel 4, a man called Eric Nicoli proudly remembered ‘the bravest thing I’ve ever done’. In November…
Serial offenders
Modern soap operas have lost the plot
