http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/collision--anatomy-of-an-accident-1815520.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/collision--anatomy-of-an-accident-1815520.html ]]> <p>What do the following dead people have in common: Albert Camus, Jackson Pollock, James Dean, Jayne Mansfield, General George Patton and Princesses Grace and Diana? Diana's inclusion in the list should be the killer clue that this is a roll call of celebrities who departed this life in a car crash, although road traffic accidents are a common-enough experience for us civilians, too – and not just from rubber-necking motorway pile-ups. I have personally known two people who have died in their cars and I imagine that is a fairly average tally.</p> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-week-in-radio-keep-taking-a-trip-down-memory-lane-1814763.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-week-in-radio-keep-taking-a-trip-down-memory-lane-1814763.html ]]> <p>There are times when the whole of BBC radio seems in the grip of one vast, unstoppable wave of reminiscence, like some garrulous granny of the airwaves whom no one likes to interrupt. Nostalgia is the order of the day. Here's just a small list of things people have been nostalgic about this week. The Berlin Wall. The M1 motorway. The BBC's Maida Vale studios. Victorian photography. Izal lavatory paper. Yes, lavatory paper! The nasty, hard, shiny kind. Incredibly there was an entire programme about this on Radio 4, Now Wash Your Hands, which examined how Izal was made, how it was good for writing on and playing with a comb. What it actually felt like on the skin. What feelings were aroused by its coal tar aroma. You can keep your madeleines, Marcel Proust. Here in Britain, we get misty-eyed over medicated loo roll. </p> Features Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/should-we-switch-off-the-x-factor-1814767.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/should-we-switch-off-the-x-factor-1814767.html ]]> Features Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/spooks-a-drama-that-sees-the-future-1813576.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/spooks-a-drama-that-sees-the-future-1813576.html ]]> <p>Call it sixth sense. The makers of Spooks, BBC1's hit MI5 drama, which begins its eighth series on Wednesday, seem to have an uncanny knack of knowing what's about to happen in the news. </p> Features Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-agitator-i-have-deceived-my-friends-and-i-had-millions-of-them-1813550.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-agitator-i-have-deceived-my-friends-and-i-had-millions-of-them-1813550.html ]]> <p> The 2nd of November, like each of its 364 essential cousins of calendar, is almost inevitably twinned with an historic anniversary snoozing somewhere in the catacombs of history </p> Features Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:50:50 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-couch-surfer-if-political-parties-insist-on-invading-pop-culture-they-wont-reengage-anybody-1813058.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-couch-surfer-if-political-parties-insist-on-invading-pop-culture-they-wont-reengage-anybody-1813058.html <p> There's always something a trifle silly about a political party trying to attract young voters. What I really mean is, there's always something a trifle silly about the Conservatives trying to attract young voters. </p> Features Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/how-tv-drama-became-university-challenged-1811485.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/how-tv-drama-became-university-challenged-1811485.html ]]> <p>From Brideshead Revisited to Lucky Jim, CP Snow to David Lodge, and Howard Jacobson to Howard Kirk, universities and their sometimes insalubrious employees form a fruitful and well-established genre of British literature. Our television drama and comedy, on the other hand, seem strangely averse to higher education, as if the subject opposes the medium's demotic instincts. I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of people in TV are graduates. However it's as if the gonk-wielding swots on University Challenge have reinforced a very British stereotype of the intellectual and persuaded generations of commissioning editors – probably against their own experience – that academia is deeply uninteresting and fit only for an occasional snigger.</p> Features Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/small-world-how-television-ate-itself-1811071.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/small-world-how-television-ate-itself-1811071.html ]]> <p>Once, there were two Jerry Seinfelds. There was Jerry Seinfeld, now 55, a stand-up comedian from Brooklyn, New York and the creator of his own self-titled sitcom, Seinfeld – one of the most popular TV shows of all time. And then there was "Jerry Seinfeld", a just-about-fictional stand-up comedian from Brooklyn, New York and the creator of his own eponymous sitcom, Jerry – which was cancelled after a single episode. "Jerry", as played by Jerry, was the protagonist of Seinfeld, and ceased to exist when that show wrapped for the last time in 1998.</p> Features Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/can-tv-be-radical-again-1810368.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/can-tv-be-radical-again-1810368.html ]]> <p>How's this for an unlikely scenario? The 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher coming to power is being marked this autumn by a publicly-funded arts body. Not that the British Film Institute's United Kingdom! season is a direct anniversary salute to the prime minister who so drastically altered the broadcasting landscape in this country – it's more a handy peg on which to hang an overview of the proud tradition of radical British television drama, from Cathy Come Home to Shameless.</p> Features Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-couch-surfer-im-not-proud-of-any-of-this-but-i-hope-it-doesnt-make-me-a-weirdo-1809340.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-couch-surfer-im-not-proud-of-any-of-this-but-i-hope-it-doesnt-make-me-a-weirdo-1809340.html <p>I did it again. I swore I wouldn't. But I did it again. This time, it happened when I was watching Spiderman, as a crowd of New Yorkers hurled detritus at the Green Goblin from the Brooklyn Bridge. "You mess with Spidey, you mess with New York!" one of them cried, showing real pluck for someone who had just wanged a plank of wood at a grenade-toting lunatic squatting on a hoverboard.</p> Features Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/log-on-to-see-the-last-days-of-tortured-turing-1808404.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/log-on-to-see-the-last-days-of-tortured-turing-1808404.html <p>A fictionalised account of the final moments in the life of Alan Turing is to be premiered via The Independent website from today. In the first collaboration of its kind between a national newspaper and an independent production company, the radio drama features Samuel Barnett, star of History Boys and Desperate Romantics, as the Bletchley Park code breaker. He died in 1954, eating an apple laced with cyanide after being convicted of gross indecency. The shame meant Turing was dropped from sensitive government work.</p> Features Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/how-jack-bauers-sidekick-turned-nemesis-1807225.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/how-jack-bauers-sidekick-turned-nemesis-1807225.html ]]> <p>Off screen, Carlos Bernard and Kiefer Sutherland, the actors who play Tony Almeida and Jack Bauer, the apparently un-killable counter-terrorism agents in 24, are the best of friends. With that slow, almost whispered drawl familiar to the squillions of 24 fans around the world, Bernard describes their relationship: "Let me put it this way. I had a party at my house the other night, and Kiefer was the last person to leave, at five in the morning."</p> Features Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-week-in-radio-comedy-gems-in-a-digital-wilderness-1806798.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-week-in-radio-comedy-gems-in-a-digital-wilderness-1806798.html <p>If there were ever words more prone to raise an involuntary shudder, apart from "And now, You and Yours... ", it is "DAB radio". At least in those listeners concerned that one day their beloved Roberts, or bedside clock radio or kitchen transistor – along with more than 100 million other analogue sets – will become obsolete as the nation's FM and AM stations are shifted onto DAB. Most have no idea when this day will arrive. Some hope it will just go away. Perhaps that secretly goes for the government too, which has yet to endorse the projected 2015 date for switchover set in its own Digital Britain report. </p> Features Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-thick-of-it-back-in-the-loop-1805589.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-thick-of-it-back-in-the-loop-1805589.html ]]> <p>The bad news for MPs hoping to shore up their image in the seemingly never-ending wake of the expenses scandal is that this Saturday sees the return of The Thick of It, Armando Iannucci's brilliant and unsparing satire on the inner workings of the no longer new Labour government. Not that the party elite will try to ignore the semi-improvised sitcom when it begins a new eight-part run this weekend, because it seems that, as with Margaret Thatcher's famous enjoyment of Yes, Minister, The Thick of It is required viewing in Westminster. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the only thing worse than being laughed at is not being laughed at.</p> Features Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/and-now-for-something-completely-familiar-1804363.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/and-now-for-something-completely-familiar-1804363.html ]]> <p>There were no wet fish, dead parrots or cheese of any kind on the stage of the Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan on Thursday evening. What we did have, however, were all five surviving members of the Monty Python team proving that, even in their late 60s, being anarchically rude to one another still comes naturally.</p> Features Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/defying-gravity-star-trekkers-the-next-generation-1803361.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/defying-gravity-star-trekkers-the-next-generation-1803361.html ]]> <p> Space may be “the final frontier” – but the final frontier of what, exactly? The final frontier of human endurance and technological capability, or of the literary imagination? Or is it just a vast void into which to propel reckless amounts ofmetaphysical and allegorical junk? </p> Features Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:35 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/observations-pryce-brushes-up-on-his-pinter-1803283.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/observations-pryce-brushes-up-on-his-pinter-1803283.html <p>Jonathan Pryce has appeared in The Caretaker before – a BBC adaptation followed by a staging at the National Theatre in 1980 – but when veteran director Christopher Morahan asked him if he would consider doing it again, he was immediately interested. His one proviso? "If I do it I want to do it at the Everyman".</p> Features Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-week-in-radio-shooting-star-almost-got-the-brushoff-1802713.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-week-in-radio-shooting-star-almost-got-the-brushoff-1802713.html <p> I’ll only give you an interview if you go to bed with me,” is not the kind of line a journalist hears much nowadays. Or perhaps I don’t get out enough. But whereas a request like this today would have broadcasting apparatchiks in a frenzy over harassment procedure, back in 1972 it didn’t faze David Bailey. It didn’t even bother him that it was Andy Warhol asking. He said yes, and the resulting surreal documentary made history, entertainingly recounted in Radio 4’s When Bailey Met Warhol. </p> Features Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:07 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/ten-of-the-best-tv-gaffes-1801572.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/ten-of-the-best-tv-gaffes-1801572.html ]]> <p> Last week it was Strictly Come Dancing embroiled in a row after a racist remark by one of its dancers. This week its X Factor that's facing the critics after Dannii Minogue publicly outed singer Danyl Johnson as bi-sexual live on TV. </p> Features Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:12:53 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/tim-walker-i-still-love-entourage-ndash-the-way-you-love-an-ageing-pet-whos-blind-and-lame-1801196.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/tim-walker-i-still-love-entourage-ndash-the-way-you-love-an-ageing-pet-whos-blind-and-lame-1801196.html <p>When I first fell for Entourage, HBO's "dramedy" about movie star Vincent Chase and his friends enjoying the Hollywood high life, it wasn't Vince's charismatic super-agent Ari Gold that turned my head; it was Johnny "Drama" Chase, his older, less successful brother. Played to perfection by Matt Dillon's younger, less successful brother Kevin, Drama is an infuriating mixture of aggression, insecurity and extreme loyalty, equal parts loveable and hateful.</p> Features Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/x-factors-john-and-edward-terrible-twins-or-the-next-big-thing-1800154.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/x-factors-john-and-edward-terrible-twins-or-the-next-big-thing-1800154.html <p> From the moment John and Edward burst onto the X Factor stage with their faux-American accents and questionable singing ability, TV viewers have been obsessed with the two spiky-haired teenagers from Dublin. </p> Features Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:19:01 +0100