TV
Motivated by love
At the start of Somewhere Boy, an 18-year-old boy is rescued from an isolated house by his aunt Sue following…
Senior moment
We men all think we’ve still got it, even when we’re well past 50 and young women look straight through…
Why I love a cliché
You’d have to pay me an awful lot more than I get for this column to review Monster: The Jeffrey…
So much better than talking
In all the tributes to Her late Majesty’s constancy, dignity, wisdom and devotion to duty, not enough has been said…
In all seriousness
Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…
There will be blood
House of the Dragon got off to a pretty uninspirational start, I thought: no major characters brought to a shocking…
The money shot
Is the onscreen portrayal of investment bankers as monsters true to life? Martin Vander Weyer talks to the writers of Industry
Rough justice
At 4.38 a.m., one morning in October 2013, the radio presenter Paul Gambaccini was understandably asleep when the doorbell rang.…
Finger-wagging and flawed
‘Diversity is woven into the very soul of the story.’ If those words of praise from a rave review in…
Howard’s way
About ten minutes in to Thirteen Lives, Boy came in and asked me whether it was any good. I said:…
Mob mentality
It’s hard to imagine in the wake of GoodFellas, The Sopranos and Gomorrah but there was a time, not so…
Old news, but good news
When TV makes shows about TV, it rarely has a good word to say for itself. In the likes of…
Softly, softly
Grizzled police officers of the old school should probably avoid Channel 4’s Night Coppers for reasons of blood pressure. Like…
The thrilling game
‘The Terminal List is… a dated and drably made eight-part military thriller that offers little intrigue or excitement,’ says the…
Not one for the naive
The Undeclared War has many of the traditional signifiers of a classy thriller: the assiduous letter-by-letter captioning of every location;…
Special delivery
A youngish couple leave London and drive off excitedly to make a fresh start in more rural surroundings. They demonstrate…
Great Dane
Borgen star Sidse Babett Knudsen talks to Jasper Rees about why, after a break of ten years, the implausibly more-ish series is returning for a fourth season
Poetry in motion
Craig Raine on the challenges of translating poets’ lives and work to the screen
Rooney tunes
It’s official: television has a new genre. Its features include leisurely half-hour episodes, plenty of literary chat, several scenes set…
Come spy with me
How thriller writers must miss the Cold War! Early John le Carré and Len Deighton had it easy when trying…
No more Mr Nasty Guy
In theory, it should be a perfect match. John Morton – the man behind the brilliantly assured sitcom W1A which…
The age of innocence
Netflix’s share price has collapsed and a major factor, people are saying, is its relentless pushing of agendas. I think…
Don’t frighten the horses
Chivalry – written by and starring Sarah Solemani and Steve Coogan – is a comedy drama about post-#MeToo Hollywood life.…
Weirder and weirder
The only impersonation I can do is my Jimmy Savile impersonation. This is not uncommon among people of my generation:…
In the land of the subtitle
The iron law of TV these days is that if you want to avoid series that are suffocatingly right-on the…
