TV
Doggie style
This week I’d like to point you in the direction of the British Film Institute and its free online archive…
Antique dildos
Danny Brocklehurst, the scriptwriter for Sky One’s Brassic, used to work for Shameless in its glory days — although if…
Withdrawal symptoms
A TV play by Tom Stoppard, A Separate Peace, was broadcast live on Zoom last Saturday. I watched as my…
Many happy returns
Talking Sopranos — a new weekly podcast which launched this month— is another example of a seemingly unstoppable sub-genre occupying…
The great escape
When I lived briefly in Stamford Hill I was mesmerised by the huge fur hats (shtreimel) worn by the local…
Nerd mentality
How do you tell a great story? According to Craig Mazin, you have to be a sadist. ‘As a writer,…
A kind of magic
You have to admire the spirit of the organisers of last weekend’s One World: Together at Home concert. To put…
Shock and gore
There were plenty of TV shows around this week designed to cheer us up. Sky Atlantic’s Gangs of London, however,…
Testing times
Imagine rooting for the Australian cricket team. If you’re Scottish, Welsh or Irish — or Australian obviously — it might…
For love or money
There can’t be many programmes that bring to mind quotations from both Henry Kissinger and Boney M., but BBC2’s The…
Great Scot
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
The fascinating Ms Swift
There had been some question about whether Taylor Swift’s Netflix special would actually appear. Last year it seemed that the…
Foreign language TV is without the political correctness spoiling English drama
Every cloud has a silver lining. Never again are you likely to have a better opportunity to catch up with…
A soldier’s life
First shown on BBC Scotland, Harry Birrell Presents Films of Love and War (BBC4, Wednesday) was the documentary equivalent of…
The abbey habit
The world may be going to hell in a handcart but some things remain reassuringly unchanged: Julian Fellowes period dramas…
Accentuate the negative
Sky One’s Breeders (Thursday) bills itself as an ‘honest and uncompromising comedy’ about parenting. To this end, the opening scene…
Spooky delights
One of my perpetual gnawing terrors is that I’ll recommend a series that looks initially promising but turns out to…
‘I feel compelled to be disgraceful’
Miriam Margolyes chews the fat with Tanya Gold about mother love, anti-Zionism and too much shagging
Lost in translation
You won’t find much Jane Austen in the myriad adaptations of her novels, says Claire Harman
Vol-au-vent horror
Not much was clear in the opening scenes of The Pale Horse (BBC1, Sunday), which even by current TV standards…
Mettle detector
SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sundays) is literally the only programme left on terrestrial TV that I can bear…
From hell to heaven
One of the many astonishing things about the BBC2 drama The Windermere Children (Monday) was that the real-life story it…
Beyond belief
Sky’s latest bingewatch potboiler Cobra can’t quite make up its mind whether it wants to be an arch, knowing House……
Undeniably eye-popping: BBC2’s Louis Theroux – Selling Sex reviewed
Victoria, a single mother in her early thirties, is getting her children ready for school — ensuring an equitable distribution…
Did everyone in punk sell out?
For many people of a certain age (full disclosure: mine), punk has been a weirdly persistent presence. These days, we…
