ITV
Eric, Ernie and Me, BBC Four review - he brought them sunshineSaturday, 30 December 2017
To misquote Marx (Karl, not Groucho), comedy repeats itself, the first time as farce, the second time as a tragedy. The early days of broadcasting bred comedians whose work lives on in the nation’s marrow. But being Frankie Howerd or Kenneth... Read more... |
Maigret in Montmartre, ITV review - dirty deeds in clublandSunday, 24 December 2017
Whatever the Waitrose and Morrisons commercials are telling you, as far as TV schedulers are concerned ‘tis the season for murder. Thus a Christmas Maigret has become an instant tradition, with Rowan Atkinson reprising his performance as Georges... Read more... |
Bancroft, ITV review - Sarah Parish's very cold caseThursday, 14 December 2017
This week we were all meant to be gripped by a bunch of ancient geezers nicking diamonds in Hatton Gardens. The postponement of ITV’s nightly four-part drama – the second of four (four!!) different versions of the infamous burglary – is a bit of a... Read more... |
Bad Move, ITV review - Jack Dee resettles in the middle of the roadThursday, 21 September 2017
That the countryside is a dump where all good things come to a dead end is hardly a new punchline. There are plenty of novels and memoirs, and indeed newspaper columns, about trading the toxic metropolis for the green and unpleasant pastures of the... Read more... |
100 Year Old Driving School, ITV review – a warning with historyWednesday, 13 September 2017
While Horizon, on BBC2, was telling us that the first person to walk on Mars could well be walking among us now, ITV's 100 Year Old Driving School suggested that the space mission could take a major setback if that wannabe astronaut were to... Read more... |
Liar, ITV - who, if anybody, is telling the truth?Tuesday, 12 September 2017
Could handsome, successful, designer-stubbly Ioan Gruffudd really be a rapist? Yes, according to schoolteacher Laura Nielson (Joanne Froggatt). No, according to Gruffudd’s character Andrew Earlham, a distinguished surgeon and widower apparently... Read more... |
Cold Feet, series 7, ITV review - more comedy than dramaSaturday, 09 September 2017
When the ITV comedy drama Cold Feet returned last year after a 13-year break, it seemed something of a risk. Looking back, after the near-universal acclaim and excellent viewing figures, it’s difficult to think it could have been anything but a... Read more... |
Safe House, series 2, ITV review - the abduction and captivity show returnsFriday, 08 September 2017
Forget Christopher Eccleston and the Lake District. Two years on, Ed Whitmore’s ready-mix thriller Safe House returns with Stephen Moyer in Merseyside. He plays Tom Brook – not the venerable film critic (Talking Movies is still showing on BBC World... Read more... |
Fearless, Series Finale, ITV review - big build-up to an anticlimaxTuesday, 18 July 2017
It was a coup by ITV to get Homeland writer Patrick Harbinson to pen this paranoid-conspiracy series, and rather droll to get Helen McCrory (wife of Homeland’s Damian Lewis) to play the lead. Yet even though the story of high-minded human rights... Read more... |
Fearless, ITV review - Helen McCrory lights up dense conspiracy thrillerTuesday, 13 June 2017
Emma Banville is almost too good to be true: a human rights lawyer who houses Syrian refugees, wins the most hopeless cases of wrongful conviction, won’t be bullied by anyone – coppers, prison wardens, the system. OK she smokes, presumably for the... Read more... |
The Loch, ITV review - hokum shrouded in Scotch mistMonday, 12 June 2017
There’s something nasty in Loch Ness – a corpse tied to a curling stone – but, this being tellyland, the real monsters lurk on its shores. The Loch aspires to be a Scottish Broadchurch – Braidkirk? – but, alas, is nothing of the... Read more... |
Election Night 2017, BBC One, ITV, Channel 4, Sky NewsFriday, 09 June 2017
The latest test of the nation’s perseverance and patience – a snap election called just before the negotiations for Brexit are due to start – seemed like an extraordinary act of hubris at the start. The initial billing of “Strong and... Read more... |
