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'Europe is watching you' - German comedian the only voice of criticism as Eurovision brushes aside human rights

Sun, 27 May 2012 16:26:49 +0100

Despite its long track record of human rights abuses there was barely a hint of condemnation during this weekend’s Eurovision final in Azerbaijan.

Heads Up: Shakespeare's History Plays

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

What are we talking about? Four new films, commissioned by the BBC, of William Shakespeare's history plays Richard II, Henry IV Parts I and II, and Henry V.

The Barlow-Morgenstern Method, Radio 4, Saturday Reading Between the Lines, Radio 4, Tuesday

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

It was a surreal image: Gary Brooker, lead man of Procol Harum, playing a grand piano in the middle of a court room and singing 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'. The forensic musicologist Peter Oxendale was there. "It was staggeringly beautiful," he fondly recalled.

Hit & Miss, Sky Atlantic, Tuesday Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: a 17th-Century History for Girls, BBC4, Tuesday

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The premise of Hit & Miss – a transsexual hit (wo)man finds she's fathered a son with her ex-girlfriend, now dying of cancer – is not only an original one, but one that's been well publicised. Thankfully, the first episode gets on with the exposition brusquely: here's Mia, our pre-op transsexual assassin, dispatching someone with cold, unglamorous efficiency; now she's applying lipstick in the mirror, because she is a glamorous lay-dee after all. We get some would-be gratuitous nude shots of offbeat Hollywood star Chloë Sevigny (playing Mia, with a dodgy Irish accent) ... except that there's a penis hanging between her legs, for clarification.

Television choices: Do you feel lucky, punk? A right rotten retrospective

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

TV pick of the week: Punk Britannia

Grace Dent on Television: Harlots, Housewivs and Heroines - a 17th Century History for Girls, BBC4

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Once upon a time, history lessons were no place for girls. Thank you gods of telly for BBC4's Dr Lucy Worsley, vehemently shoving the "she" back into tales of yore. How I'd have loved this as a child. My GCSE Second World War lessons consisted of endless Pathé News footage of the British patriarchy, knees apart, testicles simmering with righteous glee, pondering the death of other men, with the odd perfunctory nod towards a Land Army filly moving spuds in a van from Burford to Chipping Norton.

DVD/Blu-ray: Grandma's House: Series 2 (15)

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

"Do you need more acting lessons?" Rebecca Front's fame-hungry mum asks her struggling son (Simon Amstell).

My Secret Life: Jo Whiley, 47, radio DJ

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

My parents were... at the heart of everything wherever we lived; they were the ones organising the Jubilee party, the toy library, swimming clubs, fundraising...

Last Night's Viewing: The Fish Market: Inside Billingsgate, BBC2 Grandma's House, BBC2

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Can I commend to you an adjective I'd never encountered before? It's "skulduggerous" and the OED citation would run something like this: "2012 Roger Barton The Fish Market: Inside Billingsgate – 'I've never dealt with such a skulduggerous bunch in all my life and I've dealt with some real villains'."

The Week In Radio: How the cry-baby British lost their Blitz spirit

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Whatever happened to stoicism? At what point did we Brits give up on the chilliness enforced by centuries of corporal punishment and parental indifference and yield to the impulse to get everything out in the open? When exactly did we turn into a nation of cry babies boo-hooing to our therapists about how our parents never showed us affection and are thus responsible for everything that went wrong thereafter?

Last Night's Viewing: Hitler's Children, BBC2 24 Hours in A&E, Channel 4

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

"Many people tell me I look like my father," said Monika in Hitler's Children, "but I'm not Amon... I have nothing in common with him either." Well, nothing but a big chunk of DNA, without which, one assumes, Monika would have found Schindler's List a far less troubling experience than she did.

Top of the Pops to be resurrected as live stage show

Wed, 23 May 2012 15:04:37 +0100

The glory days of Pan’s People will be revisited when Top of the Pops is resurrected as a live stage show featuring a new troupe of dancers who will interpret golden oldies.

Last night's viewing: Hit & Miss, Sky Atlantic; My Big Fat Fetish, Channel 4

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:00:01 +0100

You can tell that Hit & Miss is going to be a cut above from what it chooses to surprise you with. The central character, Mia, is a hired killer. She’s not the first female assassin we’ve seen on screen by a long shot, but this combination of gender and profession is still unusual enough that a more conventional series might tease you with the reveal. We’d see Mia touching up her lipstick first, say, and be allowed to coast with our preconceptions for a while before she stepped out of the car and shot her first victim. Here, it happens the other way around.

Frederick Delius: How a great British musical myth was born

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:00:01 +0100

Image management isn't such a recent phenomenon after all. In John Bridcut's new documentary about Frederick Delius, marking the 150th anniversary of his birth, an extraordinary history emerges, revealing the degree to which the composer's chief champion manipulated his reputation to make him appear more "British" than he really was. That champion was none other than the celebrated conductor Sir Thomas Beecham.

James Van Der Beek: New doors open for Dawson

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:00:01 +0100

The problem with interviewing former teen idols is that you have a fixed view in your head about how they'll be. Thus, before I talk to James Van Der Beek, I imagine that he'll be something like his character on infamously angst-ridden teen drama Dawson's Creek: verbose, serious, prone to weighty proclamations and intense bouts of self-examination.

Last night's viewing - The Fall of Singapore: the Great Betrayal, BBC2; Gok Cooks Chinese, Channel 4; Great British Menu, BBC2

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

You are a thriller writer, working on a tense scene in which an ex-Etonian toff, hugely knowledgeable about naval airpower and suspected of sharing his knowledge with a foreign power, is being questioned by intelligence officials. Present at the meeting is the Director of Public Prosecutions, presumably on hand to put the fear of God into the suspect. So, what do you name this important figure?

Hard acts to follow: ballsy TV heroines keep on coming

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

In his book The Essential Difference, Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University professor of developmental psychopathology, wrote that "the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy". Not on TV drama, they aren't – or not any longer.

The Weekend's Viewing: Off by Heart Shakespeare, Sat, BBC2 Episodes, Fri, BBC2

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Here are the rules. Nine young finalists from something like 2,000 original entrants memorise and perform a short speech from Shakespeare in front of an RSC audience.

Robin Scott-Elliot: Holding's honeyed growl drowned out by Sky's Chelsea cheerleaders

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

It's a personal suggestion for sporting heaven. The Saturday morning of the first Test of the summer, newspapers, coffee and David Gower caressing you into the day. Above all it is the sounds of a Test match morning that allow gentle waves to wash away the week.

56 Up, ITV1, Monday The Hoarder Next Door, Channel 4, Thursday

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Reading the TV schedule is like gazing into space: you pick out the familiar blobs and pass over a lot of unknown emptiness. Occasionally, a comet leaps out and surprises you, like The Killing. And then there's Up, a TV asteroid, which comes round every seven years.

Kind Hearts and Coronets, Radio 4, Saturday Strap In - It's Clever Peter, Radio 4, Wednesday Beryl and Betty, BBC Radio Humberside, Saturday

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Tricky though the film Kind Hearts and Coronets must have been for the many-roled Alec Guinness, it was almost certainly a doddle compared with Alistair McGowan's feat of portraying seven members of the Gascoyne family by voice alone, in yesterday's sequel. That there was never any doubt as to who was supposed to be whom was a tribute to his rightly lauded mimetic powers.

Melvyn Bragg: Good to be back?

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The first time Melvyn Bragg was interviewed for this paper, back in 1990, Lynn Barber was surprised by how nervous he seemed, twitching and writhing in his chair. Who can blame him? Dear Lynn didn't exactly hold back afterwards, calling him boring, vain, transparent, smiling, simpering and smug (twice). Oh, and she said his novels had gone off.

Grace Dent on Television: The Exclusives, ITV2

Sat, 19 May 2012 10:00:43 +0100

There was a bit in the first serving of ITV2's new media-based search-for-a-journo romp The Exclusives which made me weep via its bleakness. No, really. I had a little tear. I don't write this in a hyperbolic, "I stabbed my eyes out and poured in Domestos," gonzo snore-rant sense. I simple did a little snivel.

I'm married to the music, says Proms' biggest fan ahead of his 51st successive visit from Italy

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

An Italian music-lover who has attended every single Proms season for the past half century – and most of the concerts – is planning to continue his tradition this year. He is among fans who have bought record numbers of tickets for the 2012 season.

TV choices of the week (19/05/2012): A jubilant study of our small-island ancestors

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

TV pick of the week

Last Night’s Viewing: Tales of Television Centre, BBC4 The Great Euro Crash with Robert Peston, BBC2

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

When the BBC revealed that it would be moving out of Television Centre and handing over its doughnut building to a developer, the announcement was followed by a brief Twitter storm as various actors and media types shared their indignation.

When leaving it all to the listeners can be a turn-off

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

"I'm relying on your wit because I've left mine in a caravan in Altrincham," announced Liza Tarbuck at the start of her new show on Radio 2. Alas, she wasn't joking. Listener interaction was certainly a priority for Tarbuck – either that or the show's running order had been carried away in a gust of wind. Because while acknowledging the individuals who make up your audience and are indirectly responsible for keeping a roof over your head is all well and good, there's a limit to how much the rest of us want to hear about Joe and Josephine Public's plans for a swinging night out.

Last Night’s Viewing: Secret Eaters, Channel 4 Felicity Kendal's Indian Shakespeare Quest, BBC2

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

According to Anna Richardson, "we each make about 200 eating decisions a day". Judging from the ballooning of the national waistline, pretty much all of those decisions are "Oh go on then. I shouldn't but I will".

Scientist Jayson Khun-Dkar discovers opera singing skills after television experiment

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:00:21 +0100

Last year Jayson Khun-Dkar read an advert in a newspaper while sitting on the bus. At the time, he could not read a single musical note and his experience as a singer amounted to a few bravado karaoke performances, which, though highly commended by his friends, gave no clue to an extraordinary talent lying dormant within. Today, Jayson Khun-Dkar is an opera singer.

Last night's viewing: The Town Taking on China, BBC2; Silk, BBC1; Cardinal Burns, E4

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

He's a versatile actor, Bill Paterson, with a nice line in dry top-spin. But there are phrases that even he finds hard to rescue from bathos. Such as this one, for example, from The Town Taking on China: "Anyone who's anyone in the world of cushions, curtains and bedlinens is here."

Who are radio's hottest new talents? Meet Beryl Renwick and Betty Smith (combined age: 176)

Tue, 15 May 2012 14:00:01 +0100

Beryl and Betty do not deliver stereotypical DJ one-liners. Nor are they hip young things waxing lyrical about the latest chart sensation. When these ladies get chatty on the mic, their cackling banter veers from memories of wartime rationing to lustful thoughts about Michael Bublé.

Last night's viewing - 56 Up, ITV1; Chatsworth, BBC1

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

If you didn't shed at least one or two tears during 56 Up then you might want to check your pulse. It is, by some stretch, among the most affecting television programmes ever made, even when – as with last night's opening episode – it begins in determinedly upbeat style.

Andy Gray and Richard Keys win Sony Radio Academy award for Best Sports Programme

Mon, 14 May 2012 22:45:44 +0100

The disgraced former Sky Sports broadcasters Andy Gray and Richard Keys celebrated a comeback as unlikely as Manchester City’s last night after winning the Sony Radio Academy award for Best Sports Programme.

Britain's Got Talent winner 'overwhelmed' by support

Mon, 14 May 2012 12:16:16 +0100

Britain's Got Talent winner Ashleigh Butler said today she felt “overwhelmed” by support from the public after she and her dog Pudsey triumphed in the live final of the competition.

Trending: Character actors of the world unite!

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

In the mid-Nineties, US network NBC had one of the all-time great television line-ups, with Friends, Seinfeld and ER. Not just great shows, but record-breakingly popular ones, too.

The Weekend's Viewing: The Lost World of the Seventies, Sun, BBC2 Starlings, Sun, Sky1

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

"Universal history...is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here," wrote Carlyle.

Robin Scott-Elliot: David Beckham trots towards the Olympics but what of his sporting afterlife?

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

It's not a good time for Stuart Pearce, what with going from scrupulously planning the laundry schedule for JT, Lamps and the gang in Krakow this summer to Roy Hodgson deciding to leave him at home to sort his sock draw on his own.

Prisoners of War, Sky Arts 1, Thursday Episodes, BBC2, Friday Cardinal Burns, E4, Tuesday

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

A lone woman speeds along a dusty road in Iraq; she's a CIA operative; she hits a queue, abandons the car and calls Langley to try to get an execution stayed; she bribes a man to get her into a prison and moments before she's bullied away by guards, the executed-to-be whispers something incendiary to her.

Believe It! Radio 4, Tuesday Word of Mouth, Radio 4, Tuesday

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I never feel comfortable when fact is mixed with fiction. I spend the whole time trying to figure out what's real and what's made up and usually end up vaguely irritated if it's not clear which is which. And then, I usually say to myself, the truth is usually more interesting anyway, so why bother?

Grace Dent on Television: The Hoarder Next Door, Channel 4

Sat, 12 May 2012 11:00:47 +0100

Just as Channel 4's de-clutter series, Get Your House in Order, ended, their new one, The Hoarder Next Door, began, quickly followed by BBC1's Britain's Biggest Hoarders.

Ordinary Joe: A new HBO series satirises President Obama's right-hand man