Television

Biddy Baxter and the perils of remembering the past

29 August 2023 4:30 pm

I’ve been reading the cracking, crackling new biography Biddy Baxter: The Woman Who Made Blue Peter by Richard Marson (he’s a friend,…

Much of the mysteriousness is inadvertent: ITV’s The Reunion reviewed

12 August 2023 9:00 am

The Reunion opened in 1997 with some young people being carefree: a fact they obligingly signalled by zipping around the…

Will we even notice if AI replaces screenwriters?

22 July 2023 9:00 am

Will we even notice if AI replaces screenwriters?

The BBC’s biggest problem

22 July 2023 9:00 am

As I write this, the director-general of the BBC is being quizzed on the corporation’s future by people who were…

Diary

3 June 2023 9:00 am

The strange obsession with Phillip Schofield

3 June 2023 9:00 am

As I have noted before, there is always another circle. I thought that last week’s scandal (originally entitled ‘Suellagate’ or…

TV dramas like Welcome to Wrexham are spoiling sport

20 May 2023 9:00 am

The blurred lines between sport and entertainment

What Zelensky has taken from his former TV career

29 October 2022 9:00 am

Volodymyr Zelensky is one of the few leaders of modern times whose charisma, determination and sheer cojones can be said,…

Boris, Sherwood and the politics of the past

9 July 2022 9:00 am

It feels like the end, but we’ve been here before. The past months of Boris Johnson’s teetering administration have felt…

A masterclass in evenhandedness: James Graham’s Sherwood reviewed

18 June 2022 9:00 am

James Graham has made his considerable name writing political-based dramas of a highly unusual type: non-polemical ones. And this certainly…

I’m a tourist in my own town

4 June 2022 9:00 am

‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,’ groans a weary Al Pacino in The Godfather…

Changing channels: the new war for political broadcasting

21 May 2022 9:00 am

The television will be revolutionised

The BBC’s obsession with youth

14 May 2022 9:00 am

At long last the state of Oregon has got around to installing tampon machines in the male lavatories of its…

Is this Premier Inn all I’ll be remembered for?

16 April 2022 9:00 am

It’s fairly commonplace for people to wonder what, if anything, they’ll be remembered for. I’m going to be 59 later…

How to watch YouTube on your TV – and why you should

16 April 2022 9:00 am

According to Pliny the Elder, Scipio Aemilianus was the first man to shave daily. The origin of the name Boeing…

The most disadvantaged group in Britain? White working-class men

9 April 2022 9:00 am

I’m not sure what to think about the BBC’s announcement that it wants a quarter of its staff to be…

The day I nearly brought RT down

26 March 2022 9:00 am

It is interesting to watch Ofcom finally remove the broadcasting licence from the Russian propaganda channel Russia Today (RT). I…

The unseen Victoria Wood

13 November 2021 9:00 am

For a few years now I have been living with Victoria Wood. That sounds all wrong, obviously, and yet no…

Sky Sports is ruining my football season

6 November 2021 9:00 am

When I promised my 13-year-old son, Charlie, that we would go to as many QPR games as possible in 2021-22…

In blockbuster Britain, the BBC is being left behind

2 October 2021 9:00 am

There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind…

The BBC is being left behind in blockbuster Britain

29 September 2021 11:00 pm

There’s a great revival under way inthe British TV and film industry,but it’s not the BBC that’s behind it.Netflix is…

My literary heroes have led me astray

4 September 2021 9:00 am

Gstaad   Good manners aside, what I miss nowadays is a new, intelligent, finely acted movie. Never have I seen…

HBO’s The Prince should leave George alone

3 August 2021 4:30 pm

Last year Netflix refusedto add a disclaimer to the beginning of every episode of The Crown, warning viewers that it…

Modern soap operas have lost the plot

31 July 2021 9:00 am

Modern soap operas have lost the plot

British broadcast news has gone badly wrong

19 June 2021 9:00 am

I’ve worked for some media thoroughbreds — including the Financial Times, ITN and CNN — so I know the sense…