Drama

A hit – but please don’t pretend it’s feminist: Disney+’s Rivals reviewed

19 October 2024 9:00 am

For most of my adult life, clever, well-read, feminist women have told me how much they love Jilly Cooper. It…

A fashion series made by people who hate fashion: Apple TV+’s La Maison reviewed

12 October 2024 9:00 am

I’m a bit disappointed – déçu, as we Francophiles like to say – with La Maison. When French TV drama…

A massive, joyous, sensational hit: Why Am I So Single? reviewed

21 September 2024 9:00 am

Why Am I So Single? opens with two actors on stage impersonating the play’s writers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss.…

The clue to Shakespeare’s sexuality lies in the sonnets

6 July 2024 9:00 am

They are quite unlike any other sonnet sequence of the time and seem to be a kind of personal statement – written by a man with undeniable feelings for another man

Watching Queen Cleopatra felt like witnessing the death of scholarship

20 May 2023 9:00 am

The most controversial aspect of Netflix’s new drama-documentary Queen Cleopatra – not least in Egypt – was the casting of…

Alienatingly sweet and warm: BBC2's The Newsreader reviewed

30 July 2022 9:00 am

When TV makes shows about TV, it rarely has a good word to say for itself. In the likes of…

Who are these pathologically liberal rozzers? Channel 4's Night Coppers reviewed

16 July 2022 9:00 am

Grizzled police officers of the old school should probably avoid Channel 4’s Night Coppers for reasons of blood pressure. Like…

The ancient Greek art of theatre criticism

2 July 2022 9:00 am

Last week Lloyd Evans was wondering whether it was about time audiences started booing dramatic productions of which they disapproved.…

Shades of Tony Soprano: BBC1's The Responder reviewed

29 January 2022 9:00 am

Older readers may remember a time when people signalled their cultural superiority with the weird boast that they didn’t watch…

Tells us more about today than the early 1960s: BBC1's A Very British Scandal reviewed

18 December 2021 9:00 am

For people who like a good upper-class scandal (or ‘people’, as they’re also known), 1963 was definitely a vintage year.…

A blisteringly bonkers first episode: Doctor Who – Flux reviewed

6 November 2021 9:00 am

BBC1 continuity excitedly introduced the first in the new series of Doctor Who as ‘bigger and better than ever’ —…

A highly polished exercise in treading water: Season 3 of Succession reviewed

23 October 2021 9:00 am

At one point in an early Simpsons, Homer comes across an old issue of TV Guide, and finds the listing…

Bleak, unashamedly macho and grown-up: BBC2's The North Water reviewed

11 September 2021 9:00 am

‘The world is hell, and men are both the tormented souls and the devils within it.’ This was the cheery…

Latest proof that western civilisation is over: Sky Atlantic's Domina reviewed

29 May 2021 9:00 am

I’ve been looking at the reviews so far of Sky’s new Romans series Domina and none seems to have noticed…

Superb but depraved: BBC1’s The Serpent reviewed

9 January 2021 9:00 am

The Serpent is the best BBC drama series in ages — god knows how it slipped through the net —…

Netflix's Barbarians taught me those Romans had it coming

12 December 2020 9:00 am

Of all the times and places to have been on the wrong side of history, I can’t imagine many worse…

Spare us David Hare

24 October 2020 9:00 am

Having not watched television for nine months and already growing bored of the 1,000-piece jigsaw of General Alfredo Stroessner (part…

Funny, tender and properly horrible: Channel 4’s Adult Material reviewed

10 October 2020 9:00 am

A woman is eating a pie in her car as it gets an automatic wash. Careful to keep the pie…

From riveting Hitchockian melodrama to bigoted drivel: BBC’s Unprecedented reviewed

8 August 2020 9:00 am

Back to the West End at last. After a four- month lay-off, I grabbed the first available chance to catch…

Sumptuous and very promising: A Suitable Boy reviewed

1 August 2020 9:00 am

Nobody could argue that Andrew Davies isn’t up for a challenge. He’d also surely be a shoo-in for Monty Python’s…

Another drama about how women are great and men are rubbish: C4's Philharmonia reviewed

6 June 2020 9:00 am

On the face of it, a French-language drama about a Parisian symphony orchestra mightn’t sound like the most action-packed of…

How Tom Stoppard foretold what we’re living through

9 May 2020 9:00 am

A TV play by Tom Stoppard, A Separate Peace, was broadcast live on Zoom last Saturday. I watched as my…

Classic tangled thriller: Sky's Gangs of London reviewed

24 April 2020 11:00 pm

There were plenty of TV shows around this week designed to cheer us up. Sky Atlantic’s Gangs of London, however,…

Understated, unashamedly patriotic and heartbreaking: The Windermere Children reviewed

1 February 2020 9:00 am

One of the many astonishing things about the BBC2 drama The Windermere Children (Monday) was that the real-life story it…