Channel 4
Spies shouldn’t be political
Now that events in Ukraine are restoring a sense of proportion about the difference between aggressive autocracies and free countries,…
Why Channel 4 shouldn’t be privatised
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…
Some jolly TV artifice and a rare moment of authenticity: C4’s Miriam and Alan – Lost in Scotland reviewed
Thanks to Covid, the days are gone — or at least suspended — when a TV travel programme meant a…
Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution should be called ‘The Tragedy of Gordon Brown'
Murder Island features eight real-life ‘ordinary people’ seeking to solve a fictional killing on a fictional Scottish island. What follows…
A total mess: BBC2's The Watch reviewed
Last Sunday on Channel 4, a man called Eric Nicoli proudly remembered ‘the bravest thing I’ve ever done’. In November…
Modern soap operas have lost the plot
Modern soap operas have lost the plot
Is Jed Mercurio bored with Line of Duty?
When a drama begins with news of a ‘Chis handler’ receiving ‘intel graded A1 on the matrix’ that causes a…
John DeLorean: man of mystery – and full-blown psychopath
DeLorean: Back from the Future was one of those documentaries — for me at least — that takes a story…
Who's laughing now? Cancel culture is killing comedy
The BBC and Channel 4 are self-censoring their comedy output because they are so terrified of offending people. So says…
Funny, tender and properly horrible: Channel 4’s Adult Material reviewed
A woman is eating a pie in her car as it gets an automatic wash. Careful to keep the pie…
Sick, puerile, inappropriate and delicious: Amazon Prime's The Boys reviewed
There’s a delicious scene in the new season of Amazon’s superheroes-gone-bad series The Boys. The chief superhero Homelander (Antony Starr)…
A fine, even rather noble drama: BBC1's The Salisbury Poisonings reviewed
This week, BBC1 brought us a three-part dramatisation of an ‘unprecedented crisis’ in recent British life. Among other things, it…
Another drama about how women are great and men are rubbish: C4's Philharmonia reviewed
On the face of it, a French-language drama about a Parisian symphony orchestra mightn’t sound like the most action-packed of…
SAS: Who Dares Wins is harsh, gruelling and transgressively countercultural
SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sundays) is literally the only programme left on terrestrial TV that I can bear…
Should we be playing the surveillance state for laughs? Celebrity Hunted reviewed
One of the many great things about The Capture was that we could never be sure whether the British authorities’…
The Octopus in My House left you with an overwhelming sense that octopuses are astonishing
Professor David Scheel, the presenter of a BBC2 documentary on Thursday, instantly brought to mind that American scientist in The…
Makes you wonder if you’ve got drunk without noticing: Wild Bill reviewed
Usually, the return of Killing Eve would be pretty much guaranteed to provide the most unconventional, rule-busting TV programme of…
Did the makers of When I Grow Up have no qualms turning a small boy into a hate figure?
Channel 4’s When I Grow Up had an important lesson for middle-class white males everywhere: you’re never too young to…
Why has Frankie Boyle gone so soft?
‘I spend a lot of time helping teenagers who’ve been sexually abused…’ — beat — ‘…find their way out of…
Why did no one think the premise of Mums Make Porn was questionable?
What can parents do about the avalanche of pornography available to their children on tablet, phone and laptop? This question…
It’s shocking how many Michael Jackson fans are still determined to take his side
Halfway through the first part of Channel 4’s extraordinary documentary Leaving Neverland (Thursdays), I flicked through the comments on social…
Promising but, compared to the first series, short of laughs: Fleabag reviewed
BBC2’s MotherFatherSon announced its status as a classy thriller in the traditional way: by ensuring that for quite a long…
