- Reviews RSS Feed

Last Night's Viewing: Horizon - Fracking: the New Energy Rush, BBC2 Quick Cuts, BBC4

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Over the past 20 years or so, exclamation television has steadily increased as explanation television has dwindled. You could take last night’s Horizon film Fracking: the New Energy as a representative symptom.

TV review: Something for Nothing, Channel 4

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:55:00 +0100

"I've had treatments worth £5,000," said Jenny Townsend, one of Harry's Heroes in Something for Nothing. You get to be one of Harry's Heroes not by rescuing a comrade under withering Taliban fire or helping orphans in a developing world country, but by blagging stuff for free. Jenny had managed to score countless beauty treatments for nothing in return for offering her face and body as training material for beginners. And already the central concept of Something for Nothing was starting to strain a little.

TV review: The Greatest Shows on Earth, Channel 4 - Daisy Donovan explores the buttockular world of Brazilian beauty pageant MissBumBum2012

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:05:00 +0100

Who says television teaches you nothing? For example, I now know, though sadly do not exemplify, the Second Rule of the Beautiful Bottom, as explained by a plastic surgeon on one of Brazil's more popular television shows. Let your arms dangle by your sides... now, "the first metacarpal bone should be in line with the infra gluteal fold". Or in layman's terms, the first bone of your thumb should be level with the horizontal crease below your buttocks. The First Rule of the Beautiful Bottom, in Brazil at least, appears to be If You've Got It Flaunt It, which explains MissBumBum2012, the buttockular talent show that was Daisy Donovan's first port of call in The Greatest Shows on Earth, a new series about global telly.

TV review: The White Queen is less historically plausible than Game of Thrones (despite being ostensibly true)

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:13:02 +0100

Dedicated fans of Game of Thrones may have got a sense of déjà vu as they watched the opening of The White Queen, BBC1’s new Sunday-night costume drama.

Matt Butler: As English as warm beer, as Scots as Douglas Jardine

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:13:08 +0100

As oxymorons go, Scottish cricket sounds on a par with Dutch mountaineering, English gridiron or extreme golf. Heck, earlier this month the national side lost a 40-over match to Essex, of all counties – they of the 20 all out on Friday. In the next match they even lost to Australia's second string.

Sport On TV: Are pundits warned to avoid hard-hitting commentary?

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 02:30:28 +0100

So it wasn’t two o’clock in the morning and he wasn’t wearing a funny wig – that was Lasith Malinga – but how many times has Kumar Sangakkara wound up England now?

Read all about it: The Stupid Footballer Is Dead

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 02:15:59 +0100

Paul McVeigh once played a match when he was still drunk from the previous night out. He once came back for pre-season so out of condition it cost him his place at the club. And he was once sent off for head-butting an opponent. Now he is a mentor for young players.

Radio review: Between The Ears, Radio 3, Saturday

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Obsessively taping your conversations with a particular person is a suspiciously weird pastime – unless you're an artist. Sebastiane Hegarty is, and his decades' worth of recordings of his mother constitute a powerful exploration of the human condition.

Television review: The Iraq War - It's the alternative history boys

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0100

Is the CIA worried about my favourite Google searches? " Mr President, it's the 18th time this week the subject has searched on 'swingset + used + south London'. For the sake of the free world, we need to take him out now!" The news that America's National Security Agency is monitoring our digital communications is a conspiracy theorist's clammy dream come true. So much so, in fact, that there may be a forum out there debating whether this news is merely an ingenious front for a yet more devilish attack on our human rights.

TV review: Compare Your Life, Channel 4/ Horizon: The Secret Life of the Cat, BBC2

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:55:00 +0100

I hadn't heard of the "science of comparison" before last night. As far as I'm aware no Nobel Prizes have been issued in this field and there doesn't appear to be a Centre for the Science of Comparison in Oxford or Leeds or anywhere else for that matter. But I'd certainly heard of it after watching four minutes of Compare Your Life, because the programme's presenter, Carlton Hood, had already used the phrase three times.

TV review: The Iraq War, BBC2

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:35:00 +0100

Whatever else it has done, The Iraq War, Norma Percy's three-part history of the conflict and its aftermath, has greatly increased our understanding of diplomatic prevarication. Every colour in the spectrum of mendacity makes an appearance in these programmes, from the infra-red of the outright lie to the ultra-violet of polite euphemism.

TV review: Child Genius, Channel 4 - what happens when your offspring turn out to be brilliant?

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:35:00 +0100

Last year, I met Alma, a seven-year-old whose talent on the violin had inspired Stephen Fry to wonder online if she were "a new Mozart". It made a nice story (Alma sipped milky tea from a mug decorated with squirrels as she talked about composing her own opera), but most striking was the challenge she presented to her shy father, an amateur flautist. When your child turns out to be brilliant, what do you do – make them "normal", starving them of stimulation, or mould them into a Mozart, beaming as you rear a smarter version of yourself?

TV review: John Oliver takes over at The Daily Show without host Jon Stewart

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:13:27 +0100

It’s still called The Daily Show “with Jon Stewart”, only now it’s not with Jon Stewart.

TV review: Dates, Channel 4 - Bryan Elsley's new drama about modern relationships

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:58:00 +0100

In life, a one-night stand can scarcely be counted a success if it doesn't end in consummation. In television drama, no such rule applies, though there's always a dangerous temptation to go for the easy climax. You're not going to be seeing each other again, after all. There isn't another date next week when the disappointments of the evening can be made good with something extravagant (as Breaking Bad does so brilliantly).

TV review: The Returned, Channel 4

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:46:16 +0100

Always a shock when the dead return to life. A few years ago, for example, those of us who value subtitled drama had pretty much got over our sense of bereavement. Even BBC2 wouldn't run a subtitled film, it seemed.

Matt Butler: Fetch me my cords, the TT bikers have taken the island

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 23:49:45 +0100

There's an old joke where Lord Nelson is standing boldly on Victory. He demands a telescope ("so I can see my enemy's eyes"), then a red jacket ("so the enemy cannot see my blood") – before the true horror of battle dawns on him. He then says, "Fetch me my brown corduroy trousers..."

Television review: The Call Centre - The oily boss with a touch of Brent crude

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 19:15:00 +0100

More than a million people work in British call centres, and the average age of the poor bloody infantry of our "service industries" is 26. Which looked about right as the cameras swooped over 700 employees hunkered down in the cube farms of the Swansea headquarters of Save Britain Money. BBC3, the channel broadcasting The Call Centre, wants, above all, for twentysomethings to watch the series, which may explain why the documentary skirted the economic hardships facing that generation and got on with the innuendo, the hard drinking and the vomit of modern office life.

Last night's viewing: The Most Dangerous Man in Tudor England, BBC2

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:00:00 +0100

"Today, many have never even heard of him," Melvyn Bragg said about William Tyndale at the beginning of The Most Dangerous Man in Tudor England. I wasn't entirely sure about this statement. True, if you were to poll the shoppers in Westfield on an average Saturday you might find the recognition factor was low.

Last Night's Viewing: Love and Marriage, ITV The Apprentice, BBC1

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Kevin was a little tearful by the end of his baby's christening and determined to make a speech about the importance of family: "Thanks for making this a very special day for me," he said, before choking up a little and calling for a toast. He didn't thank Grandpa Frank specifically, if I remember right, but then again he would have had to be psychic to know that Frank, in particular, was going to make it one of those christenings you just don't forget.

TV review: Mad Dogs, Sky1

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 09:22:00 +0100

So the four, fortysomething, accidental criminals of Mad Dogs have returned for a third series, and this time Quinn, Baxter, Woody and Rick found themselves far from Majorca. Exactly which dodgy prison they had landed in was a point of some confusion at first. The orange jumpsuits and the cell graffiti ("I heart Bin Laden") offered some clues, though it turned out not to be Guantanamo but a place resembling it in the middle of the Moroccan desert.

TV review - The Fall (BBC2) paints an alarmingly intimate portrait of a killer

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:44:00 +0100

"You try and establish a rapport," said Stella Gibson, explaining her interrogation technique to a young colleague in The Fall last night. Well, you shouldn't have too much trouble with that, Stella, should you ever come face to face with Paul, the serial killer at the heart of Allan Cubitt's drama. Not an episode has passed so far without a pointed reminder that there's a kinship between the two of you.

The Weekend’s Viewing: It’s not easy being a deep-cover KGB agent in Eighties America

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:01:03 +0100

The scene that summed up The Americans came when Elizabeth popped out to the garage of her suburban home in Washington.

Matt Butler: Look out, Wimbledon, Mats Wilander's about to ride into town

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

My Uncle Paul looked like Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He had a leathery face, piercing eyes and a stare that could stop a wild boar in its tracks. He used to say things like "I could take all your fingers off with one bite" and you never quite knew if he was joking or not.

TV review: The Americans and Up the Women - Women who kick ass and crochet? I'd vote for that

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Is it just me or did anyone else experience a time warp last night on the sofa? Just me? Let me explain. ITV's new American import, The Americans, is set in the 1980s. And, judging by its first episode, its makers probably think Cagney and Lacey was the high water mark of US television drama. For that matter, when was the last time BBC1 or ITV1 committed a chunk of Saturday night to a big brassy American show? For a moment – and I could be wrong about this – it felt as if I was watching an Eighties-style show set in the Eighties being broadcast like it was … well, I've already laboured the point.

DVD review: Veep, The Complete First Season

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0100

Armando Iannucci and his pals from the BBC's The Thick of It relocate their quick-fire government insult-fest to Washington DC.

Last Night's Viewing: Up the Women, BBC4 Playhouse Presents: Psychobitches, Sky Arts 1

Fri, 31 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

There was an unnerving moment in the first episode of Up the Women when it looked as if Jessica Hynes might have contracted a bad case of Eltonitis, an inflammation of the funny bone that can render even the most talented writers temporarily witless.

Last Night's Viewing: The Iraq War, BBC2 Confessions of a Male Stripper, Channel 4

Thu, 30 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

What went through Tony Blair's mind when he was invited to take part in The Iraq War, the latest of Brook Lapping's fascinating exercises in behind-the-scenes history? Better out than in, presumably.

A Shameless ending? Fans react on Twitter to final episode of Channel 4 drama

Wed, 29 May 2013 12:14:00 +0100

Last night saw the final ever episode of Shameless after its successful 10-year run, which reunited various faces from the past for the send off.

Last night's viewing - Shameless, Channel 4; Words of Everest, ITV

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

"There comes a time in a man's life when he has to sit back, take stock of things and ponder that old philosophical chestnut, 'How the fuck did I end up here?'" So Frank Gallagher welcomed in the beginning of the end with his usual dry wit as he was led out of his prison cell and back to the sink estate from whence he came. After 10 years and 11 series that made stars of several actors (James McAvoy, Anne-Marie Duff, Maxine Peake et al), Paul Abbott's Bafta-winning drama Shameless is no more. But, before that, its final hour… Duff returned as the disapproving daughter, Fiona, but it was David Threlfall who stole this swansong as the shambolic benefits scammer, Frank, here trying to break free from the nagging brood of Gallagher kids he has fathered over the years, but being drawn back in a Pogues-style "Fairtyale of New York" admission of mutually destructive love for them (or possibly because he couldn't afford the bus fare for the runner).

TV review: Skint, Channel 4

Tue, 28 May 2013 15:00:00 +0100

A few years ago, the BBC ran a programme called Skint, a thoughtful and touching account of life on the breadline, its characters yo-yoing back and forth to Cash Converters, as they juggled their meagre assets to make it to the next benefit payment. It humanised the very poor and made it harder for viewers to caricature them as merely workshy or feckless.

First sight: Arrested Development; Season 4, Episode 1 Netflix

Sun, 26 May 2013 19:32:19 +0100

This, says the narrator Ron Howard, is “the story of a family whose future was abruptly cancelled”.

The Weekend's Viewing: I think even David Bowie will admire the craft with which Francis Whately constructed this film

Sun, 26 May 2013 19:08:04 +0100

“I am only the person the greatest number of people believe I am,” David Bowie said once, a declaration used as a kind of epigraph for Francis Whately’s hugely enjoyable film about the star. Just lately, the greatest number of people seem to believe that Bowie is the epitome of creative charisma, a Midas of cool who can do no wrong. So it was one of the incidental pleasures of David Bowie – Five Years that it simultaneously satisfied the fan’s desire for occasions of worship while also acknowledging that infallibility is not one of Bowie’s qualities. There were sequences that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but also sequences that made your toes curl, most notably an old piece of archive shot in Andy Warhol’s Factory, in which Bowie mimed a self-evisceration that ended with him releasing his still-beating heart to the sky like a dove. “The Laughing Gnome” is a well-known blemish, but on this showing, the unlaughing, gnomic Bowie had his embarrassing moments too.

TV review: Eddie Izzard's Mandela Marathons - Go, Eddie, go! But get some proper shoes

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Eddie Izzard is a deeply unusual man. I don't mean the cross-dressing or the old line attributed to him, about being "a lesbian trapped inside a man's body". I'm referring to his almost pathological appetite for running marathons.

Radio review: Radio 1's Stories - Derry does harmony, but the undertones remain

Sat, 25 May 2013 18:00:40 +0100

The Undertones have earned a place in the history of Derry, so when a piece of music was sought with the aim of presenting a harmonious front to the world there was only one choice. Bring on the fiddles, the bodhrans and the pipe-band snare drums and let “Teenage Kicks” begin ....

TV review: The Hunt for Britain's Sex Gangs, Channel 4

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:30:00 +0100

You don't get a lot of art in a documentary like The Hunt for Britain's Sex Gangs, but Tazeen Ahmad's film about Operation Chalice, a three-year investigation into the trafficking of underage girls in Telford opened with a moment of heightened television rhetoric.

TV review: Town with Nicholas Crane, BBC2

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

"Towns" is not a word that sits comfortably alongside an exclamation mark. Useful things, of course, and, in many people's view, preferable to cities, hamlets and villages. But there's something municipal about the word that suppresses thrill. It isn't a word into which you can easily inject breathless excitement. Not that that was going to stop the presenter of Town with Nicholas Crane from having a go.

TV review - Branded a Witch, BBC3

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The next time someone suggests to you that all spiritual beliefs are deserving of equal respect, you might mention "kindoki", an African name used to describe a demonic spirit that can take possession of a person. There's no doubting the sincerity of those who believe in kindoki or witchcraft, sincere beliefs usually being presented as more worthy of our deference. But there's little doubt about their toxic effects either, explored in Kevani Kanda's distressing BBC3 film Branded a Witch.

The Weekend's Viewing: Melancholy Isaacs prevents a case of cosiness

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:01:41 +0100

Never work with children or animals, said W C Fields.

Matt Butler: Now Strauss is making history in the commentary box

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:53:04 +0100

History was made on Friday, with the first televised crap at Lord's. Sorry, history was made on Friday, with the first televised "crap" at Lord's. And it was uttered by none other than a former England captain.

Sport On TV: Frankie Dettori leaves David Beckham in his shadow. That's no small feat

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Channel 4 News seems to be losing its sense of perspective. Last week Fergie's retirement booted the Queen's Speech into touch, and this Thursday's bulletin led with Jon Snow declaring: "We are in the midst of racing's horrifying perfect storm."

TV review: Life of Crime - Best get your story straight, ma'am ...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:15:00 +0100

Spanning three decades in total, ITV's three-part cop drama Life of Crime, lurched from 1985 to 1997 last week. The telly shorthand hasn't grown any more subtle: while the Eighties were cued with Culture Club and Maggie Thatcher on the radio, endemic sexism and racism throughout the Met, and the Brixton riots (and all filmed in a nicotine-yellow grimy hue), for the crisper Nineties we've got Blur and Oasis, chunky mobile phones and Diana dying.

Radio review: The Science of Music - The strange case of the singing Neanderthals

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:15:00 +0100

Music is more than mere entertainment, that much is clear. And I don't just mean that for every bit of fluff by Jedward or Psy there's a masterpiece by Janacek or Sibelius. It's more that music goes deep inside us, literally.

Last Night's Viewing: The Murder Workers, Channel 4 The Tube: an Underground History, BBC2

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

"Nice as you are, I wish I'd never met you," said one of the mothers in The Murder Workers. She was talking to Alli, a woman nobody would want to meet in a professional capacity, since Alli is a member of Victim Support's homicide team, a group of specialist social workers who help the relatives of murder victims negotiate the immediate aftermath of the crime.

Last Night's Viewing: The Apprentice, BBC1 Bankers, BBC2

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

I think The Apprentice may have peaked a little early this year. I'm not convinced we're going to get a better mission statement than the one delivered in the opening episode: "We're going to run like hell to sell those ukuleles", a line that to me cries out to be set to music.

TV review: Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (TLC) is certainly educational television

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:42:15 +0100

The richest irony about Here Comes Honey Boo Boo may be the name of the channel that brings it to us -- TLC, formerly The Learning Channel, which began life delivering educational content in the States but later discovered a far more prosperous existence as a feed-pipe for low-brow reality swill.

Last night's viewing - The Fall, BBC2; The Flying Archaeologist, BBC4

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

"No one knows what's going on in someone else's mind and life would be intolerable if we did," murmurs Paul to his wife soothingly. Paul knows what he's talking about. He's a therapist and bereavement counsellor and, apparently, a loving father, currently a little preoccupied, like his wife, by his daughter's recurrent nightmares. In fact, the two of them are in her bed, the little girl having been resettled in the parental room after waking up screaming.

TV review: Olivia Colman can do no wrong - But The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (ITV) was a mistake

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:22:02 +0100

It is the considered opinion of this column that Olivia Colman can do no wrong. It's also its considered opinion that she's just made a mistake, a rare one in a career that's so far been marked by what the X Factor crowd would call great song selection. Whether by happy accident or canny judgement, the shows Colman has appeared in have displayed her talents brilliantly, beginning with comedies that showed how vividly she registers, even when she's in the background, to dramas that revealed the intensity of her acting. But I'm not sure you can add The Suspicions of Mr Whicher to the list – a sequel to an earlier dramatisation of Kate Summerscale's book about a notorious case involving a real Victorian detective. If it's any consolation to her, she isn't the only good actor to have been led astray, since the excellent Paddy Considine is back as the moody Whicher, who has left the Met and now appears to take new cases on the basis of personal curiosity and serendipity.

TV review: Pride and Prejudice, Having a Ball - Miss Austen, shall we enjoy rapid motion?

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:10:00 +0100

Anyone out there who still thinks Jane Austen was a prim spinster who produced genteel portraits of Regency society? Watching Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball, it occurred to me that the first revisionist pamphlet revealing her to be a sex-crazed nutbag probably came out the Tuesday after she died. As the presenters Amanda Vickery and Alastair Sooke reminded us, Austen wrote approvingly of "the felicities of rapid motion". Well, quite.

Radio review: It's My Story: Knowing Me, Know Autism

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:10:00 +0100

There were numerous strategies open to Robyn Steward for living with Asperger's syndrome. She decided on hers at an early age. "I wanted to be like Pink Floyd … and go on tours and stuff." And that's exactly what she has done, developing what is effectively an autism roadshow, giving us "neurotypicals" an insight into life on the spectrum.

TV review: Sex on Wheels (Channel 4) - a look at the carnal needs of four disabled individuals

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:52:43 +0100

It can’t be very often that a mother arranges for her son to be visited by a prostitute. But then desperate times called for desperate measures, reasoned Tracy in the documentary Sex on Wheels – her 26-year-old son John’s severe learning disabilities getting in the way of an active sex life, or indeed any kind of sex life.

TV review: Great Artists in Their Own Words, BBC4

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

"Sometimes I see wonderful and beautiful things on television, which I like and which interest me... but sometimes it's appalling." You and me both, Pablo.

First Night: I'm sick of clichés, says Lord Sugar as the The Apprentice returns

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:58:34 +0100

Summoning the latest assortment of 16 to the boardroom at midnight – a tactic which smacked more of the Mafia than modern business practice – Lord Sugar announced that he was “sick of the clichés”, before duly unleashing one of The Apprentice’s favourite clichés - the roll-call of insanely delusional braggadocio.

TV review - Hannibal (Sky Living) needs more bite

Wed, 08 May 2013 09:49:00 +0100

Psychological profile: Hannibal. Residence: Sky Living. Age: 32 (Bits of plot can be traced back to parts of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon). Motivations/desires: Using one of literature and film's most captivating psychopaths to put a bloody new spin on the hoariest of TV genres, the crime procedural. Conclusion: Needs more fava beans.

Matt Butler: Carragher's combative edge should sharpen up the studio

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:55:52 +0100

Sportspeople are wired differently from us mere mortals. Whether you watched Bradley Wiggins grunting his way round Ischia or Jamie Carragher throwing himself into tackles in his last Merseyside derby yesterday, it was plain to see that just taking part is not an option.

The Weekend's Viewing: In Russell Lewis, Endeavour has a writer who knows when to stop

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:01:26 +0100

Your affection for a television programme can sometimes boil down to the smallest things. I've fallen for Endeavour over the last four weeks, a classy bit of Sunday-night escapism that, on paper, had some prejudices to overcome. It's a spin-off for one thing, which always feels a little indolent as a commission. It's also two hours long, which needn't be a defect in a drama, but does put quite a high premium on it having some compensatory virtues. And it's a period piece, which raises the danger that a Bakelite telephone or a vintage Vauxhall Cresta will used as a substitute for the kind of qualities you can't simply hire from a prop house. But Endeavour has risen above all these disadvantages, largely because in Russell Lewis's hands it knows when to stop.

Christopher Maume on Jemima Khan and the Part-Time Wife: Please introduce me to all of your wives …

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:30:32 +0100

Polygamy in Islam: what a good idea. A man or woman can have up to four wives or husbands at any one time. I wouldn’t fancy it myself, but if everybody’s happy with the arrangement ....

Mike Higgins on Vicious: Forget the cast, where are the gags?

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:30:20 +0100

If the bitchy squabbles of ageing actors and civil service drudgery is the best ITV can offer, thank goodness for Ron Swanson…

Last Night's Viewing: The Repo Man, Channel 4 12-Year-Old Lifer (the story of Paul Gingerich), Channel 4

Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Feeling better because of the spring sunshine? Daring to hope that things are getting better at last? If so you might want to avoid Sean James. "We don't live in a civilized country at all," Sean said gloomily at the beginning of Arron Fellows' film about his work. "The human race is shit."

Last Night's Viewing: Scott & Bailey, ITV1 Dara O Briain: School of Hard Sums, Dave

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Scott & Bailey, it is becoming increasingly clear, actually takes place in an alternative universe, broadly indistinguishable from the one its viewers occupy but given away by one significant inversion. In our universe senior police officers are mostly men. In theirs it looks as if promotion exclusively favours women.

TV review - Archaeology: a Secret History, BBC4

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Some of the things you dig up from underground can be explosive, a point that Richard Miles was at pains to make at the beginning of Archaeology: a Secret History. "What we believe about the stories that they tell us can be very powerful indeed," he said, a point that hardly needs underlining for some BBC executives right now.

Vicious reviews round-up: 'A Greggs doughnut of a show' or 'nostalgic fun'? Critics divided over ITV sitcom

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:47:31 +0100

Vicious has attracted a few vicious remarks. It was too dated, too theatrical and too camp for most, aside from The Metro who called it “such nostalgic fun”. The reviewers ridiculed the canned laughter and claimed that the show put too much "com" into "sitcom", setting up each line as a punchline but with little punch to go with it. The first episode attracted a fair 5.7 million viewers, but Vicious has a long way to go to reach the ratings achieved by its previous slot Broadchurch.

TV review: Vicious (ITV) starring Sirs Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi - The only laughter it provokes is canned

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:42:00 +0100

For the next six weeks, Monday evening on ITV is a study in comic contrasts, almost scientific in its clarity. At 9pm you can watch Vicious, a sitcom filmed in front of a studio audience in classic three-camera style. And then at 9.30 you get The Job Lot, a single-camera comedy set in a Midlands job centre. One is a star vehicle, featuring Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi as an elderly gay couple, and offering regular slots to Frances de la Tour and Marcia Warren as female friends. The other is an ensemble piece, with several recognisable faces but no standout star. One of them is accompanied throughout by the raucous laughter of people so gripped by hilarity that they sound as if they're on the brink of being hospitalised. The other is actually funny.

TV review: The Village continues to be tough going for its audience treading an unrelentingly gloomy path

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:26:29 +0100

The Village is appointment television, but it's one of those appointments – as for a dental descaling, say, or a colonoscopy – that you can easily find yourself making an excuse to postpone. It happened to me last week. Fifteen minutes shy of transmission, I bottled it. It had been a long day.

Matt Butler: East German revelations more than a tasty soundbite

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:53:24 +0100

When the professional wrestlers "Road Dogg" Jesse James and Billy Gunn offered their opinions on Sky Sports News on "that guy from Liver... uh... the soccer player", it was safe to say that we had heard more than enough about Luis Suarez and his bite.

Broadchurch to The Politician's Husband: Tennant's extra... we just can't get enough

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:30:00 +0100

You do wonder how an actor must feel after a week such as David Tennant has had. No sooner had he cleared up the child murder in Broadchurch, than he was out of that shabby suit and off to the barber's for The Politician's Husband. From one unassailable hit to a classy fable of political hubris. From ITV to BBC. From ageing Bieber cut to silver fox.

Last Night's Viewing: The Politician's Husband (BBC2) - Paula Milne's entertaining drama is too fast and flimsy to reflect real life

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0100

The first woman you see in The Politician's Husband is vacuuming the floor of the Chamber of the House. The second is pushing a cleaner's trolley and the fourth is polishing the floor of a Westminster lobby.

TV review: Great Bear Stakeout (BBC1) opened my eyes to sociopaths in fun-fur overcoats

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0100

"You'll never think of bears in the same way again," promised Billy Connolly at the beginning of Great Bear Stakeout. Oh, come off it, Billy, I thought. That's just boilerplate puff, isn't it? I felt pretty confident that what I thought about bears before the programme began – not to be crossed lightly, big fans of salmon, touchy parents – was broadly going to be what I thought of them when it ended.

TV review - Ben Elton's The Wright Way (BBC1) is groan-inducing

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0100

Like Dr Frankenstein, Ben Elton appears to have created his new sitcom, The Wright Way – his first for more than 10 years – by exhuming the body parts of different comedies and stitching them together. The result is an odd, lurching affair, sometimes funny but occasionally so groan-inducing that you want to gather a mob with torches and pitchforks.

Last night's viewing - Panorama: Secrets of Britain's Sharia Councils, BBC1; Game of Thrones, Sky Atlantic

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

There is a good documentary to be made about Britain's Sharia courts and the paradoxes and problems that can arise when two legal systems overlap. Unfortunately, the Panorama film The Secrets of Britain's Sharia Councils wasn't it. Jane Corbin's report turned out to be a muddled affair, fudged and unclear about the difference between a voluntary arbitration system and an institution with legally binding powers.

Broadchurch TV review: The curtain comes down Britain's answer to The Killing (so who was the killer?)

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:06:45 +0100

After suspecting every single cast member in turn during the course of a compelling and occasionally brilliant crime thriller that has been widely-touted as Britain's answer to The Killing, viewers of ITV's Broadchurch had been steered rather sharply towards the chief suspect last week. Not least when he muttered the immortal words to his wife “you don't think it was me ?!”

Matt Butler: Concerned, sensitive and, thankfully, nothing like Madeley

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:16:01 +0100

Broadcasting after a disaster requires a balance to be struck. Presenters have to walk a fine line between saying too little or too much. And their choice of words is crucial as well. It is all too easy either to go all Richard Madeley and trample all over people's sensitivities, or become like a reality singing contest voiceover person and lay on the mawkishness too thickly.

The Weekend's Viewing: From post-war analgesic to novelistic complexity, anyone interested in the history of American TV would have enjoyed this

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:01:56 +0100

America in Primetime contained the single best thing I've ever heard said about great television drama – seven sentences as good as seven weeks of scriptwriting masterclasses. The speaker was David Chase, creator and writer of The Sopranos, and his subject was indirection. He was explaining how his dissatisfaction with the television he was watching shaped the television he made. “People in TV always said exactly what was on their mind, especially in a family situation. But people don't. We all know that. We've all been to Thanksgiving dinners. I would say that 90 per cent of what Tony said, or Christopher, or Paulie or any of them was not the truth. If Tony says 'yes' he means 'no', if he says 'no' he means 'yes'. If Tony says, 'No... I'm in a good mood', you know someone is going down in about four seconds.” In a film eager to exhort us into retrospective admiration, full of very good writers praising the writing that inspired them, that was the line that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck. That's The Sopranos encapsulated, a drama that trusted the audience to do something they do every day of their lives. Read between the lines.

TV review: Da Vinci's Demons - Raffish romp through the Renaissance

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:40:00 +0100

Did you know Leonardo da Vinci loved getting high on a bong now and then? And was, like, a totally ripped hottie? There he was, on the Fox channel's new series Da Vinci's Demons on Friday night, checking out the sweet babes of Florence and all but fist-bumping Lorenzo de' Medici. This is probably not the maestro you're familiar with, or any artist, as it happens. You might have seen Jack Vettriano on What Do Artists Do All Day? a couple of weeks ago, and if he's anything to go by, the artistic type grumps about in his vest, smoking and ignoring the phone.

TV review: Maureen Lipman: If Memory Serves Me Right, BBC1

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:46:00 +0100

I wonder how much of Maureen Lipman: If Memory Serves Me Right I will remember in a year's time. Some of it is going to blur, frankly, if only because of television's fatal weakness for pulling in the same old faces.

TV review: Syria: Across the Lines - Channel 4 Dispatches

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:00:00 +0100

A sharply defined border can be a cruel thing. Right now, the Orontes river in Syria is as sharply defined as they come, engineered at some point into an arrow-straight waterway that cuts through flat fields and farmland.

TV review - Royal Paintbox (ITV) was a show of painterly competence not brilliance

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:44:00 +0100

You could have predicted quite a lot of things about Royal Paintbox, Margy Kinmonth's film about the long tradition of monarchical artistic dabbling before seeing it, but I'm willing to bet that nobody would have guessed that it would contain an allusion to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

#Broadchurch: Joe Miller is prime suspect as Twitter is filled with theories on who killed Danny Latimer

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:25:36 +0100

Joe Miller, aka Ellie’s husband and Tom’s father, remains the prime Broadchurch suspect on Twitter.

TV review - Plebs, ITV2

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0100

I've caught up late with Plebs, Sam Leifer and Tom Basden's comedy about three also-rans in Ancient Rome, which turns out to be a likeable enough affair, though you never entirely feel that they get out of second gear when it comes to the writing.

TV review: Endeavour and the cosy pleasures of the antique

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:01:30 +0100

The past can traumatize or tranquillize.

Matt Butler: Eddie and Suzi, the newest odd couple of the F1 soap

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 22:47:31 +0100

The world was watching. There had been weeks of build-up and talk. Two volatile personalities, thrown together as part of a team in a ruthless, money-driven industry, were about to be shown together on live television. Just how would they interact?

TV review: Mad Men - That's a hell of a routine you've got there, Roger

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:30:00 +0100

There can't be many men on television less self-aware than Don Draper. In this double bill to begin series six of Mad Men, the first scene proper showed Don sweltering on Waikiki beach reading Dante's Inferno. Even in paradise, the wretched Don is in hell – but of course not a ripple of irony disturbs his furrowed brow.

TV review: The High Art of the Low Countries, BBC4

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:47:00 +0100

Golden ages. What a lustre they give off from a distance, what a solid gleam of 24-carat achievement. Get a bit closer, though, and you usually find that the gold is adulterated with a lot of baser stuff. There's usually quite a bit of lead and steel in there too.

Last Night's Viewing: Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea, BBC1 The Century That Wrote Itself, BBC4

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Crikey! For a moment, I thought she was going to do it. I believed that Victoria Wood was going to inhale opium on primetime TV. That's one up on Keith Allen and his live MDMA trip – all very late-night Channel 4 and self-consciously daring.

First Night: Mad Men, Season Six; Sky Atlantic

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Was Matthew Weiner trying to tell us something with the opening shot of the season six premiere? Don, always a bookish type, is on the beach at Hawaii, countering the sunshine with a paperback translation of Dante's Inferno and those famous lines about finding yourself, halfway through the journey of your life, lost in a dark wood.

#gbsb: Your 140 character reviews of The Great British Sewing Bee episode two

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:25:07 +0100

There is a lot of Twitter love for BBC Two’s new programme The Great British Sewing Bee, in which contestants Tilly and Mark were sent home last night.

Last night's viewing - Keeping Britain Alive: the NHS in a Day, BBC2; Pop! The Science of Bubbles, BBC4

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Keeping Britain Alive: the NHS in a Day – the results of a transverse biopsy on the National Health Service – has a very simple question at its heart: "If we could see what this institution does in one day, what would it make us think?" My guess is that the makers of the series pretty much know the answer to this question already.

#Broadchurch: Tweeters keep guessing whodunit in episode six

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:40:43 +0100

Ellie Miller’s husband has emerged as the lead suspect among tweeters. Susan and Nige remain questionable, but many have guessed that Tom and Miller’s husband were in some covert internet ploy with Danny.

TV review - Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History, BBC

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:28:00 +0100

Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History had a fairly interesting premise: that it wasn't the power and strength of our monarchs that determined British history so much as their frailties. "I'm going to reveal the chinks in the royal armour," promised Lucy Worsley, chief curator at the Historic Royal Palaces.

The Weekend's Viewing: Given that one plutocrat a day is dying, I would have thought the killings might have prompted the deployment of the Swedish army

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:01:22 +0100

Something very odd happened about 52 minutes into Arne Dahl: The Blinded Man, the latest Scandicrime drama from BBC4. Until then things had been proceeding pretty much as procedurals do. The storyline concerns the serial murder of Swedish financiers and money men, an event that prompts the creation of a special-investigation squad. Given that one plutocrat a day is pitching forward into their caviar, I would have thought that the killings might have prompted the deployment of the Swedish army – that's an impressive work rate even for a television killer – but the Swedish police didn't seem to be panicking, just pulling together a number of helpfully disparate officers to work the case, including a detective under a cloud for shooting a hostage-taker and a feisty Hispanic officer who suspects him of racism.

View from the Sofa: A Grand National main course, but none of the trimmings, thanks

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:00:12 +0100

Clare Balding didn’t last long with Harvey Smith, the husband of Susan, trainer of the Grand National victor Auroras Encore, in the winner’s enclosure. Smith was standing in costume straight out of central casting’s Yorkshireman department, doing that chest-out, chin-on-neck thing that rural types from the Dales can do to a tee.

TV review: Game of Thrones - Bring me a dragon... and make it snappy

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 19:00:00 +0100

As far as I can tell, watching Game of Thrones requires commitment. Not quite, perhaps, the eye-watering steeliness of the slave warrior towards the end of Monday's episode – he demonstrated his Spartan virtues by undergoing a gruesome version of the nipple twist without so much as an "Ouchy!" But still, this handsome adaptation of George R R Martin's fantasy novels takes a dim view of viewers such as me who have merely dipped in and out over the previous two series. (Nobody dips in and out of anything in the fantastic kingdom of Westeros – they usually arrive, quite emphatically, on horseback, with a dozen armed kinsmen.)

TV review: The Intern (Channel 4) and Dogging Tales (Channel 4)

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:34:00 +0100

"We are wasting so much talent," protested Hilary Devey at the beginning of The Intern, a new show that promises to deploy a "radical recruitment method" to get Britain's young jobless on the career ladder. As a top businesswoman and high-profile Dragon, Hilary dislikes waste and she has, I think, spotted something that other television presenters have missed.

TV review: Hillsborough - Never Forgotten, BBC2

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 08:44:00 +0100

One of the questions that ran through Hillsborough – Never Forgotten was whether the events it described had happened to Liverpudlians or just to people who happened to live in Liverpool.

Last night's viewing - The Great British Sewing Bee, BBC2

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The Great British Bake-Off has been credited with boosting numbers in the WI to such an extent that the phenomenon has a name – The Mary Berry Effect. The latest entry into a genre I'll be henceforth referring to as "WI-fi" follows very similar lines. A pattern, if you will. The Great British Sewing Bee comes from Bake-Off makers Love Productions and follows a near-identical format to Bake-Off. However, instead of Mezza Bezza, we get the WI's May Martin. Already Martin has told the Telegraph what she thought of the comparison: "I've always been asked, 'Are you the Mary Berry of sewing?' and I say, 'No, I'm the May Martin of sewing.'" Good luck with that.

#Broadchurch: Your 140 character reviews of episode five

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:08:18 +0100

Broadchurch topped the Twitter TV leaderboard last night with 29,552 tweets about the fifth episode.

TV review: Jonathan Creek (BBC1) was a melange of highly watchable gobbledegook

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0100

"He's back in the saddle," proclaimed a colleague in Jonathan Creek, as if Alan Davies's veteran sleuth were a strutting young turk and not a grumpy mid-lifer in a plaid shirt. He is back, but the interregnum while he'd been off air (of nearly three years) had led to some disconcerting changes. We found him in a glass-encased office – getting ahead in advertising – in a city-slicker suit. His slide back to the sleuthy side of life didn't take long though: one whiff of mystery after a visit from the mischievous Sheridan Smith and he was left rummaging in his wardrobe for that shaggy old duffle coat.

TV review: The Village gives viewers – finally – a proper, grown-up period drama

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:01:31 +0100

Before its first airing, The Village had been billed as Britain's answer to Heimat, the monumental German drama that spans across a century of rural life in 30 episodes.

Matt Butler: Monthly special shines a new light on the Greene corn

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 23:39:16 +0100

Maurice Greene, the last great American sprinter, was not known ever to have suffered from a lack of self-belief. The GOAT ("Greatest of All Time") tattoo on his shoulder was evidence enough.

Radio review: Foot Notes - Are not stilettos just the thin end of the wedge?

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As an average kind of bloke, I must admit I'm massively conflicted about high heels. Aesthetically – and, well, hormonally – I love 'em, but when I see someone tottering along like a drunkard I'm all too aware of the stiletto tyranny. Bound feet always come to mind, especially when I hear of women having toes shortened – or even removed – in order to wear them in comfort.

TV review: Doctor Who - The Doctor's back, with his snog box

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The new season of Doctor Who began last night, introducing his new "assistant". We'll touch on the sexual politics of the Tardis later. In the meantime, I'm happy to report that Jenna-Louise Coleman seems, to me at least, an improvement on the rather stroppy presence of Karen Gillan, who played side-kick Amy Pond. Coleman, so far, plays Clara Oswald as a cutely poised complement to Matt Smith's breathless nerd.