http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-artful-codgers-channel-4br-flipping-out-israels-drug-generation-bbc4-829136.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-artful-codgers-channel-4br-flipping-out-israels-drug-generation-bbc4-829136.html?r=RSS <p>From the inaccurately punning title on, The Artful Codgers played the story of the Greenhalgh family of Bolton for laughs: tee-hee, look at the uneducated working-class types putting one over on the snooty, silly art market. But by the end, the story was starting to look a lot less funny than the programme wanted to let on.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-girl-in-the-box-fivebr-my-israel-bbc4-828176.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-girl-in-the-box-fivebr-my-israel-bbc4-828176.html?r=RSS <p>Hitchhiking across California in the Seventies, a young woman called Colleen Stan found herself on the outskirts of a town called Red Bluff. She turned down two lifts because she wasn't sure about the look of the drivers, but then a young couple drew up, the woman nursing a baby, and Colleen made her first big mistake. She climbed in. A little later, when the car stopped at a petrol station and Colleen paid a visit to the bathroom, she made her second, which was even bigger. She ignored the inner voice, which was telling her that there was something not quite right about the man. When she climbed back into the car, he drove to the edge of town and pulled a knife on her, forcing her to lock her head into a specially constructed box, lined with insulating foam to muffle the sound of her screams. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/the-week-in-radio-laughs-galore-ndash-and-some-are-intentional-827545.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/the-week-in-radio-laughs-galore-ndash-and-some-are-intentional-827545.html?r=RSS <p>As anyone who had the pleasure of hearing Charlotte Green dissolve in a fit of giggles on the Today programme a few weeks ago will know, radio can be very, very funny &ndash; intentionally or otherwise. I tuned in to BBC Radio 2's When Charles Met Wyclef on Saturday evening, expecting some hilarious clangers from the meeting of Charles Hazlewood, the Christ's Hospital- and Oxford-educated classical music enthusiast, and the Brooklyn-raised hip-hop supremo Wyclef Jean. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-perils-of-friends-in-high-places-827616.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-perils-of-friends-in-high-places-827616.html?r=RSS <p>"In the 21st century, you'd think the freak show was dead," said Mark Dolan at the beginning of The World's Tallest Woman and Me. Well, only if you haven't watched any television recently, Mark, since countless programmes still bring the dubious joys of the geek show and the carny into our living rooms, including Balls of Steel (presenter, one Mark Dolan). Of course, Mark knows perfectly well that the freak show isn't dead and that he's done more than most men to keep its thrills alive. But he needs to position himself rather carefully for what he's engaged in now, which is tracking down extraordinary people in the privacy of their homes and pretending to care about their problems while the camera gets some clear shots for the gawpers back home. It's sort of freak-stalking, and having to show his face while doing it makes Mark so uncomfortable that the series might better have been titled "Travels with an Uneasy Conscience".</p> TV & Radio Reviews Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-a-lesson-in-young-mothers-courage-826913.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-a-lesson-in-young-mothers-courage-826913.html?r=RSS <p>The makers of Teen Mum High probably didn't have the current debate about abortion law much on their minds when they dreamt this one up, but their account of life at the Moat House school in Stockport made a powerful case for making a termination more difficult to obtain. That's right, more difficult, because these very young girls are just the sort of fodder for the abortion-on-demand industry that seems to have developed since the 1967 Act was passed, welcome though it was. Except these girls weren't going to be fodder and weren't going to be told what to do, even by friends and family, let alone some freaky feminist. As Becky, 14, put it, "I don't believe in abortion. I was determined I wasn't going to unmake a mistake for everyone else." Becky was one of 11 pupils aged 13 to 16 at this special referral unit who decided to keep their babies. Because even a babe in arms doesn't override the education acts, these girls, barely past puberty, must still attend school. Of the 11, six were already mothers, and five were awaiting the birth of their little bundles of joy. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/pinter-double-bill-radio-4-825743.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/pinter-double-bill-radio-4-825743.html?r=RSS <p>The powers that be seem to be doing something to the Afternoon Play on Radio 4: they're trying to get people to listen to it. This involves commissioning work from, say, AC Grayling or Peter Ackroyd; or, on the light side, you can get a comedy drama by Hudson and Pepperdine &ndash; Hudson and Pepperdine Save the Planet, a couple of weeks ago, was very silly but had rather a lot of laughs in it. It is quite a change from the kind of stuff Radio 4 used to put out, which would tend to involve what may best be described as offerings from the school of regional whimsy. And for this relief, we are most grateful. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/flood-itvbrmidnight-man-itvbrshrink-rap-more-4brclarissa-and-the-kings-cookbook-bbc4-825758.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/flood-itvbrmidnight-man-itvbrshrink-rap-more-4brclarissa-and-the-kings-cookbook-bbc4-825758.html?r=RSS <p>As disaster movies go, Flood was of the method school. Its first release date was a calamity. So was its second. A blockbuster-style drama about flooding in the UK, it was meant to go into cinemas ... last summer. It washed up instead on ITV this week, of all weeks. To get through <I>Flood</I>, you have to put all thoughts of its topicality from your mind. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-midnight-man-itv1br-inside-the-medieval-mind-bbc4-824256.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-midnight-man-itv1br-inside-the-medieval-mind-bbc4-824256.html?r=RSS <p>Time was when every TV crime-solver had some easily identifiable little eccentricity. There was Ironside (stuck in a wheelchair), McCloud (really a cowboy), Kojak (bald, sucked lollipops, kept saying, "Who loves ya, baby?"). But with the rise of maverick cops and team-based crime dramas (Waking the Dead, CSI, NCIS, Law & Order...), the quirks got ironed out. Cracker (overweight, gambling addiction) was a late addition to the genre.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-clarissa-and-the-kings-cookbook-bbc4br-great-british-menu-bbc2br-the-apprentice-bbc2-822741.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-clarissa-and-the-kings-cookbook-bbc4br-great-british-menu-bbc2br-the-apprentice-bbc2-822741.html?r=RSS <p> Clarissa Dickson Wright has gone further than most television cooks in acknowledging the truth of Nietzsche's remark that there is no feast without cruelty. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-thats-enough-chips-off-the-old-block-821992.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-thats-enough-chips-off-the-old-block-821992.html?r=RSS <p>I think there might just be a defence for the title of Too Fat to Toddle, which otherwise would surely go down as the most cretinously thoughtless bit of programme-naming for months, a gift to the playground bullies that the programme itself identified as one of the burdens of childhood obesity. The defence, which I warn you now is not terribly convincing, runs something like this: the biggest problem for those suffering from childhood obesity isn't their genetic inheritance or the quality of their diet or the fact that they get breathless just picking up a television remote control (though all these are a problem), it's the fat content of their parents' heads.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-coronation-street-itv1-shrink-rap-more4-placebo-bbc3-821525.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-coronation-street-itv1-shrink-rap-more4-placebo-bbc3-821525.html?r=RSS <p>One of the immutable laws of soaps is that in episodes screened on bank holidays, at least eight characters will casually allude to it being a bank holiday. Soap episodes are recorded more than a month in advance, which places regulars at the Rovers Return, like their counterparts at the Queen Vic, at a serious disadvantage when it comes to discussing the latest developments in news and current affairs, such as Manchester United reaching the European Cup final or Boris Johnson becoming mayor of London.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/flood-sun-itv1br-peep-show-fri-channel-4-821061.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/flood-sun-itv1br-peep-show-fri-channel-4-821061.html?r=RSS <p>Oh, the humanity! It's never the desk jockeys and back-room administrators who suffer when a disaster strikes. It's the poor sods on the front line, who have to put into action what may well have seemed like a good idea on paper but turns out to be lethal in reality. Take Flood, for example, ITV1's compellingly awful mini-series about the inundation of London. The writers, Justin Bodle and Matthew Cope, remain relatively sheltered from public opprobrium, their names featuring only in a brief on-screen credit, along with the director and producers. And the ITV executive who actually green-lit the project enjoys total anonymity as far as the viewers are concerned. But the poor actors find themselves with nowhere to hide, exposed to the full ferocity of the storm for hours, tumbled along in a maelstrom of implausible plotting and breath-stopping dialogue. They're the ones that are going to need the trauma counselling when the water finally recedes.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/daisy-lowe-pearls-girl-is-the-new-queen-bee-of-the-rocknroll-itgirls-819211.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/daisy-lowe-pearls-girl-is-the-new-queen-bee-of-the-rocknroll-itgirls-819211.html?r=RSS <p> Daisy Lowe belongs to a very modern breed of London It-girl. It's a role you have to be born into. While their predecessors were the daughters of aristocrats &ndash; the Tara Palmer-Tompkinsons and Lady Victoria Herveys, whose pedigree was determined by how many acres their family owned in Gloucestershire and how closely related they were to the Queen &ndash; these days, it's more a question of rock'n'roll royalty than blue-blooded veins. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Sun, 04 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/humphrey-lyttelton-a-celebration-radio-4br-composer-of-the-week-radio-3-820663.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/humphrey-lyttelton-a-celebration-radio-4br-composer-of-the-week-radio-3-820663.html?r=RSS <p>Humphrey Lyttelton's death came too late for last week's column, but I still haven't got over it, and won't for some time. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Sun, 04 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/james-taylor-night-bbc4-br-the-invisibles-bbc1br-britains-youngest-grannies-bbc3br-peep-show-channel-4-820667.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/james-taylor-night-bbc4-br-the-invisibles-bbc1br-britains-youngest-grannies-bbc3br-peep-show-channel-4-820667.html?r=RSS <p>When the most attractive sight on television is a balding balladeer left over from the Seventies, you've got to wonder. I eschewed the opportunity to ogle Premiership footballers last week. Instead, the thinking woman's eye candy was "Sweet Baby James", the deserving recipient of a "special" James Taylor Night on BBC4. All smouldering eyes and tousled locks, the man who seduced Carly Simon (into marriage) and Carole King (into collaboration) with soulful songs was in fact a heroin addict, trumping Pete Doherty in both timing and talent. A repeat showing of a 1971 concert revealed his charisma and trickiness in equal parts. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Sun, 04 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-invisibles-bbc1-the-inbetweeners-e4-819507.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-the-invisibles-bbc1-the-inbetweeners-e4-819507.html?r=RSS <p>There's a rather shocking interview with the scriptwriter William Ivory in this week's Radio Times, in which he describes the genesis of The Invisibles. "The starting premise," he says, "was that it would be about people on the wrong side of 50 trying to get back into the mainstream. And then I thought, 'What if the mainstream isn't mainstream? What if you're trying to get back into the underworld?'" Just take a mouthful of that and swill it around, if you've got a moment. He thinks that crooks coming out of retirement is a twist, a new idea. Whatever next? How about a drama involving a policeman who solves crimes &ndash; but he's a maverick who doesn't go by the book. Or no, hang on, this one's even better: a successful City type moves to a seemingly idyllic village &ndash; but it's populated by lovable eccentrics. That's going to make the viewers sit up and take notice, isn't it?</p> TV & Radio Reviews Fri, 02 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-madeleine-one-year-on-campaign-for-change-itv1-818587.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-madeleine-one-year-on-campaign-for-change-itv1-818587.html?r=RSS <p> Journalists and commissioning editors like round-figure anniversaries, which is why, nearly one year on from Madeleine McCann's abduction, ITV1 cleared two hours of its prime-time schedule for a programme about the worst 12 months in her parents' life. And one of the more piercing elements in Madeleine, One Year On: Campaign for Change was the reminder that for Kate McCann there are no moments that aren't commemorative. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-lifes-a-beach-and-then-you-die-817908.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-lifes-a-beach-and-then-you-die-817908.html?r=RSS <p> BBC1 must have been gutted when Neighbours ran away with the man next door, just because he had more money to throw around. After all, it was the BBC that had launched Neighbours' British career, way back in 1986, and the BBC that had stayed true to it ever since. And, suddenly, just after lunchtime every day, it had to look mournfully over the fence and see Neighbours displaying its charms for Five instead. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-embarrassing-bodies-channel-4-waking-the-dead-bbc1-817190.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-embarrassing-bodies-channel-4-waking-the-dead-bbc1-817190.html?r=RSS <p>The voiceover at the start of last night's Embarrassing Bodies told us that a team of doctors would be crossing the country in a mobile clinic "leaving no orifice unprobed" and within moments of them arriving in Leeds it was clear that the voiceover wasn't kidding, as a camera took us on a voyage up the fundament of a woman called Pauline, with John Logie Baird and Lord Reith doubtless going varying shades of purple in the celestial Green Room.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/the-weekends-tv-miss-austen-regrets-sun-bbc1br-love-soup-sat-bbc1-816480.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/the-weekends-tv-miss-austen-regrets-sun-bbc1br-love-soup-sat-bbc1-816480.html?r=RSS <p>As the plot of a Jane Austen novel, the plot of Jane Austen's life leaves a lot to be desired. True, it has big country houses, and trips to town, it has dances and visits and gossip and even a slender roster of potential suitors. But it lacks the consummation of Emma or Pride and Prejudice, the sealing fantasy &ndash; which Austen herself surely understood as an illusion &ndash; that a marriage is the same thing as a happy ending. Still, in the absence of an undiscovered Austen three-decker, the life may have to do, as it did in last year's film Becoming Jane and as it does in Gwyneth Hughes's drama Miss Austen Regrets, which offers us the writer not as Olympian observer of mortal agonies but as a vulnerable mortal herself, unprotected against the fevers of romance even by the antibodies of her own sharp fictions. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-heroes-bbc2br-the-baron-itv1-815277.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-heroes-bbc2br-the-baron-itv1-815277.html?r=RSS <p>There aren't many stories that wouldn't be improved by the addition of a few superpowers, preferably in conjunction with skin-tight costumes and masks, but I'm not going to be dogmatic about that. All that "from his mother's womb untimely ripped" nonsense at the end of Macbeth, for example: much more satisfying for Macduff to pull out a hunk of green kryptonite, thereby depriving Macbeth of the super-strength and invulnerability that have got him where he is. Wouldn't it be a breath of fresh air if Mr Darcy disclosed that the reason he's been acting so cold is that he had to protect his secret identity, and was wary of Elizabeth Bennet cottoning on to the fact that he has the proportionate strength and agility of a genetically modified spider? And there isn't a single short story by Raymond Carver that doesn't scream for the presence of a band of costumed mutant vigilantes, preferably ones who've been trained in a lost oriental martial art.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-heist-bbc4br-those-were-the-days-itv3-814622.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-heist-bbc4br-those-were-the-days-itv3-814622.html?r=RSS <p>"Edward I: unacknowledged pioneer of administrative reform or 'slap-headed ponce'? Discuss, using your knowledge of contemporary documents to back up your arguments." Or, alternatively, don't bother with the historical documents at all but just have it large with a lairy crime caper that appeared to have done most of its research at the nearest Blockbuster, rather than in the National Archives. Heist, audaciously billed as part of BBC4's Medieval season, took a real event as its source &ndash; the theft of Edward I's personal treasure from a vault in Westminster Abbey &ndash; but by the time they'd finished having fun with the Guy Ritchie pastiche, virtually none of the source was still visible.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-theyre-cottoning-on-to-the-real-world-813923.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-theyre-cottoning-on-to-the-real-world-813923.html?r=RSS <p>Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts is wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee television, and delivers one of this fledgling genre's most important pleasures, which is that the coffee should be nasally administered with a high-pressure hose. So when Tara, Stacey, Richard, Georgina, Mark and Amrita were sent off to India to discover what underpins the fashion bargains on British high streets, the taxi from the airport didn't take them to an air-conditioned hotel for a couple of days of acclimatisation. It took them straight to a New Delhi slum, where they will be living alongside the garment workers whose lives and jobs they are going to share. "I'm not staying here," said Amrita, "we don't have immune systems like they do." Or a fraction of their courtesy and resilience, you found yourself tempted to add, after another 20 minutes of Amrita's unimaginative whining.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-an-appointment-hardly-worth-keeping-813256.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-an-appointment-hardly-worth-keeping-813256.html?r=RSS <p>In all honesty, had I not been suffering from professional obligation syndrome, I would probably not have watched The Doctor Who Hears Voices. It was billed as a dramatised documentary about Ruth, a paranoid schizophrenic suspended from her job as a junior doctor while tormented by an inner-voice telling her to kill herself, with an actress playing Ruth, but the controversial psychologist who treats her, Rufus May, playing himself. I don't necessarily expect my evening's viewing to be a barrel of laughs, but this sounded grim in the extreme. Still, I grabbed my notebook, gritted my teeth and got on with it. Let it never be said that TV critics don't put themselves through the mill in the line of duty.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/the-weekends-tv-pulling-sun-bbc3br-gavin--stacey-sun-bbc3br-doctor-who-sat-bbc1-812477.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/the-weekends-tv-pulling-sun-bbc3br-gavin--stacey-sun-bbc3br-doctor-who-sat-bbc1-812477.html?r=RSS <p>You may feel it's a little late to mention it but Pulling isn't half bad. And if that sounds a little grudging as a recommendation it's probably because I'm still getting over the reflexive flinch I gave when I first saw it. The episode in question began with Donna (the lovely Sharon Horgan) administering desultory hand-relief to her gormless boyfriend, Karl, and watching this scene I marked the series down as adolescently keen to shock and scratched it from my watch list. Now that I've checked back I find that the snap-judgement wasn't exactly wrong, but that in among the self-conscious lairiness there's a lot of funny stuff too. And to be honest even some of the self-conscious lairiness turns out to be funny, such as a scene in which Donna's flatmate, Louise, pitched her business plan for penis-shaped ice lollies to a potential backer, in impeccable Dragons' Den style. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/happy-mondays-radio-4br-the-single-life-radio-4-812000.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/happy-mondays-radio-4br-the-single-life-radio-4-812000.html?r=RSS <p>For those of you who have recently had surgery and do not want to endanger your stitches, may I recommend Radio 4's new night-time comedy slot, Happy Mondays? You have an overloud idiot MC, some entertainers in a very loose sense of the word and a hysterical studio audience that is pretending to be in a pub (but is, in fact, in a room at the BBC). The bad news is that you have to stay up until 11 at night to hear it, but the good news is that you will not laugh once for the entire half hour of its broadcast. Not only that, but the memory of it will erase the very idea of laughter from your mind for the next 24 hours. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/in-search-of-medieval-britain-bbc4br-stephen-fry-and-the-gutenberg-press-bbc4br-inside-the-medieval-mind-bbc4brpushing-daisies-itv1brliving-goddess-channel-4-812006.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/in-search-of-medieval-britain-bbc4br-stephen-fry-and-the-gutenberg-press-bbc4br-inside-the-medieval-mind-bbc4brpushing-daisies-itv1brliving-goddess-channel-4-812006.html?r=RSS <p>Everyone makes free with the medieval period. It's a smash-and-grab raid. Cervantes, Rossetti, Wagner and Tolkien all took whatever they fancied, be it a see-through nightie or a chunky goblet. Then there's <I>Camelot</I>, the Star Wars franchise, the cod-cassock fiction genre of monkish sleuths, Dungeons and Dragons, drip-dry goth daywear, and family-friendly jousting. And then vertiginously far down the food chain there's the BBC4 Medieval season trailer, in which musical instruments of torture like hurdy-gurdys and zithers play Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady", while animated skulls and gargoyles do a jerky little dance. Cod-medievalism, with chips.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-inside-the-medieval-mind-bbc4br-sex-lies-and-the-murder-of-mereditch-kercher-channel-4-811096.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-inside-the-medieval-mind-bbc4br-sex-lies-and-the-murder-of-mereditch-kercher-channel-4-811096.html?r=RSS <p>If you believe the camera on Inside the Medieval Mind, life in the Middle Ages was a weird and scary trip: the invisible men shimmering around the place, the dog-headed people lurking in the shadows, the women in glowing white robes popping up behind you when you're trying to play chess with your doppelg&#228;nger. The Renaissance must have come as such a relief.</p> TV & Radio Reviews Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-child-genius-channel-4br-the-apprentice-bbc2-810230.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-child-genius-channel-4br-the-apprentice-bbc2-810230.html?r=RSS <p>It's not always easy to focus on the job in hand when you're reviewing television. Take Child Genius, a Channel 4 series that follows the lives of exceptionally gifted children (or, to be more precise, exceptionally gifted children whose parents didn't tick the "no publicity" box). I know that I should be concentrating on Adam, who spends quality time with Mummy dissecting rats, or Mikhail, who can add 8,192 and 8,192 faster than you can blink, but I keep getting distracted. We were told at one point, for instance, that Peter's father "has given up his job as an artificial-limb painter". And immediately I found myself thinking, "Can't we see a documentary about that? And can it really be true that it's a big sacrifice for Peter Sr to have stepped off the limb-painting ladder? How high can you go in the field of prosthetic aesthetics?" And when we were shown the MP Michael Mates, harrumphing indignantly about a letter that Peter Jr, had written to him about his problems with the local council, I found myself wondering what tortuous calculations of political advantage he'd gone through to conclude that he could safely insult a constituent on camera. Can't be rude about small children, he would have thought, but on the other hand, viewers may think he's a clever dick... so perhaps I'll get away with it. </p> TV & Radio Reviews Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:01 +0100