Women in Love was Ken Russell’s first cinema film to directly reflect his work in television. He had directed The Billion Dollar Brain (1967), but that was an adaptation of a Len Deighton book. French Dressing (1964) was a few steps removed from a Carry On film. As an adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel, Women in Love (1969) tapped into the ethos of his work for the BBC and featured Oliver Reed, with whom he had worked in television. While Reed’s naked wrestling scene with Alan Bates was a sure-fire attention grabber the film, nonetheless, didn’t have quite the free-spirited spark of Russell' Read more ...

As this year has been designated the 40th anniversary of punk rock hitting the UK, there’s no surprise that Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy is up for another home cinema release. It’s been on DVD at least three times previously. This new version, though, also comes on Blu-ray, its first outing in the format. The other selling point is a sparkling image restoration that's removed what now seems to have been a layer of murk from the earlier versions.Sid & Nancy was released to cinemas in 1986 so is, itself, enjoying its 30th anniversary. Seen now, it comes across as hyperventilating cartoon of a Read more ...

There are memorable appearances from two great actors playing close to the top of their game in Guillaume Nicloux’s Valley of Love, but they’re almost upstaged by something else. Nothing human – though their reunion and interaction in the film is being “directed” by an absent third party – but rather the environment in which they find themselves: the stark desert beauty and almost unbearable temperature of California’s Death Valley.The fact that they are played by Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu, who play characters named Isabelle and Gérard, themselves two actors of a certain vintage Read more ...

If Ashley Pharoah's superior chiller began with its 19th century protagonist, Nathan Appleby, trying to apply science and reason to seemingly irrational events, by the end of this sixth and final episode he had strayed way beyond the outer limits. Not only had the murky past of the Somerset village of Shepzoy reared up in numerous terrifying manifestations, but Nathan and his wife Charlotte were also receiving vivid and disturbing flashes into the future.To a soundtrack of eerie old English balladry, we've already had a parade of demonic possession, hauntings and murder. Last week, Shepzoy Read more ...

The story of Queen Christina Vasa of Sweden has been told in opera, novels and on stage. It was first addressed by cinema in 1933 when Greta Garbo played the title role in Rouben Mamoulian’s Queen Christina. Liv Ullmann then took the part in 1974’s The Abdication.The reasons for the persistent attraction to the story are clear. Christina was six when her father King Gustav II Adolph was killed in battle in 1632. Queen at 18, she studied voraciously and wanted knowledge and literacy for all. In thrall to the ideas of Descartes, she brought him to Sweden. She did not obediently accept Read more ...

The wish to return to a place of past safety after a traumatic event is understandable. It helps if that place is remote and possibly beyond the reach of any authorities which may want to investigate the event, or even hold someone accountable. In the case of Iona, it’s a return from mainland Scotland to the Inner Hebridean island of the same name where she grew up. It’s not instantly clear what caused her to come back but when she does, it’s apparent that memories are long and the welcome is not as warm it might be. She has a son whom no-one has previously met. The past has to be faced and Read more ...

The Disappearance, shown in France a year ago, was adapted from a Spanish drama. Both shows had a more gender-specific title: Desaparecida or Disparue. A less abstract translation into English might have been The Missing, but that title had already been taken by a recent BBC drama with which The Disappearance shared a dogged fidelity to a template (see also Broadchurch, plus a lot of Nordic noir): one fresh suspect per episode, enough false leads to set up a red herring factory, and then a big reveal to finish [spoiler alert: the denouement is discussed below].The titular absentee was Léa Read more ...

New Blood began as it didn’t quite mean to go on. Somewhere in India five Brits on their travels mustered in a medical laboratory as volunteers to test-run a new drug. The tone was pregnant with portent, so it was no surprise when a knife was wielded and blood spattered. You settled in for a moody medical noir.Six years and one title sequence later, the tone made a 180-degree handbreak turn. Standing over the corpse lying at the foot of a block of flats in rainy London, Mark Addy’s old-school plod (pictured below) spouted sarky putdowns at a uniformed young upstart who fancied himself a Read more ...

Penda’s Fen has so many constituent parts it could burst its seams. Almost-18 schoolboy Stephen Franklin is struggling with determining the nature of his sexuality. His school is about regimentation and promotes the army with drill, uniforms and expectations that commands are to be followed. With his father, the Reverend Franklin, Stephen has prolonged discussions about the nature of faith. The local landscape is mystical, and seems able to manifest historic and mythical figures from its own past. Reawakened Paganism is upsetting the Christian present. All this is happening against a backdrop Read more ...

The premise driving A War – lead character Claus Pedersen’s war – is the decision he makes as Company Commander while leading an army patrol in Afghanistan: whether or not to say he and his Danish unit are under attack from a specific house in a village.Up to this pivotal moment, Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) and his fellow soldiers are seen in their camp and going out on patrol. Routine. The day-to-day life of his wife and children, at home in Copenhagen, is contrasted with the posting. Although apart, each lives in a pressure cooker: his due to the conflict; hers as a result of dealing with their Read more ...

In its final episode Undercover tied up a lot of loose ends and introduced a number of new ones. The biggest loose end to remain unaddressed was pretty big. Nick Johnson was the alias of a policeman who in 1996 went undercover to spy on black activist Michael Antwi and his lawyer Maya Cobbina. Nick promptly fell in love with Maya; they married and had children. For the next 20 years, Maya, possessed of such a brilliant legal mind that she ends up as Director of Public Prosecutions, never once questioned Nick’s claim to be a writer despite his prodigious – nay absolute – lack of output.OK, so Read more ...

At last, after three series, Line of Duty delivered a denouement that felt like a satisfying jackhammer to the solar plexus. In the first series the bent copper under investigation escaped justice by jumping in front of a lorry. In the second there were more loose ends than are generally produced by a rope factory. It turns out that patience is a virtue and we should all have had faith.Jed Mercurio had long-term plans for Lindsay Denton that even Keeley Hawes knew nothing about. Also for the late Tommy Hunter and, of course, DC Nigel Morton, in which role Neil Morrissey kept hobbling back on Read more ...