TV
Opulence and chaos
Nobody could argue that Andrew Davies isn’t up for a challenge. He’d also surely be a shoo-in for Monty Python’s…
The Murdoch I know
The BBC documentary on Rupert Murdoch is pure one-sided bile, says Kelvin MacKenzie
Net effect
Let’s face it. Theatre via the internet is barely theatre. It takes a huge amount of creativity and inventiveness to…
Containing multitudes
It might seem a bit of a stretch to see deep similarities between Michaela Coel (young, female, black and currently…
A drive on the wild side
When a 90-minute documentary is introduced with the words ‘This is the M25’, you’d be within your rights not to…
Dysfunctional music by dysfunctional people
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
Homage to Avalonia
Televising Glastonbury has changed the festival, and in turn transformed television, says Graeme Thomson
Eroticism and ecstasy
Wayne McGregor’s Morgen! and Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits are the first pieces of live dance — streamed…
Breast is best
This week, BBC1 brought us a three-part dramatisation of an ‘unprecedented crisis’ in recent British life. Among other things, it…
Speak of the devil
Did Jeffrey Epstein kill himself or was he murdered — and frankly who cares? Actually, having watched the four-part Netflix…
Dallas with violins
On the face of it, a French-language drama about a Parisian symphony orchestra mightn’t sound like the most action-packed of…
Macbeth at the movies
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Lessons in terror
Sweden is now properly celebrated as the Land that Called Coronavirus Correctly. But in the distant past, those with long…
Beasties and besties
The music of the Beastie Boys was entirely an expression of their personalities, a chance to delightedly splurge out on…
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
