TV
Veronica Lee
You may think that Whitechapel's USP would have made a third unlikely after two successful mini-series. The first was about a modern-day copycat killer in Whitechapel who was recreating the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders, while the second was about a modern-day copycat killer who was recreating the Kray twins murders from the 1960s. Now the East End of London may be, in estate agents' terms, a vibrant place, but there are only so many bloodthirsty periods from its history to spawn yet another modern-day psychopath.The third season, which started last night, consists of three two-parters and the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
This adaptation of Jennifer Worth's memoirs about life as a midwife in 1950s east London has been a spectacular and instant hit, though it's difficult to believe its success can be solely due to its graphic scenes of screaming, blood-drenched childbirth. And at 8pm on a Sunday, too.Nor is the show's milieu of poverty-stricken tenements in London's unreformed Docklands, with the funnels of huge liners looming up at the end of the street, especially conducive to jollity and good cheer. The stories woven through the ongoing depiction of the lives of a group of young midwives, and the nuns of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Before The Beatles touched down there in 1964, British pop was barely a concern for America. The first in this three-part series took The Beatles arrival as the year zero for British pop’s conquering of America. An entertaining canter through an over-familiar slice of pop history, Go West was enlivened by some top-drawer talking heads including Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page. No Rolling Stones though.But it was great to see members of The Animals, Hollies, Searchers and Zombies given the chance to reminisce. American context came from veteran DJ Larry Kane, New York Doll Syl Sylvain, Jackie Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Beatles’s arrival on US TV screens in February 1964 is usually recognised as the beginning of the British Invasion of America. But this drama, focusing on chippy, upstart photographer David Bailey, his relationship with his chosen model Jean Shrimpton and their first shoot in Manhattan, floated the idea that their US visit in January 1962 was as pivotal as The Fabs’s debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. We'll Take Manhattan was significant for featuring Karen Gillan, now on her last lap in Doctor Who, in her first starring vehicle. The sense behind casting her was clear. Gillan Read more ...
ash.smyth
When I opened my e-nvitation to write up last night’s The World Against Apartheid, I was not expecting it to come bedecked with GoogleAds for hen parties, roller discos, and custom-made birthday invitations (keyword: "part/y", one assumes). Only 20 years ago, any mail on this topic would’ve been stuffed with "End racism NOW!" leaflets, discount book offers by/about Basil D’Oliveira, and pop-up Peter Hains beseeching you to boycott your local fruiterers. Twenty years ago "The World Against Apartheid" would have been a call to arms.But now it is a history programme, and one a decade in the Read more ...
Jasper Rees
We’ve been this way before. A few years ago the BBC screened a series called Play It Again, in which celebrities had a crack at performing on musical instruments which they had not visited in decades. Sky Arts have revisited the concept with a series called First Love, whose first six programmes went out last year and featured a usual array of celebrity suspects starring in a game of friends reunited, the musical version. The new series includes among others Stephen Mangan on acoustic guitar, Shaun Ryder on saxophone, the inevitable Alastair Campbell on bagpipes, but it begins in the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Abandoned attempts to bring Sebastian Faulks's World War One novel to the movie screen stretch from Soho to Sunset Boulevard. Most of these were prepared and discarded under the auspices of Working Title Films, so perhaps it's fitting that Birdsong has finally been made by the BBC and Working Title's new television division.One can only speculate what a cinema version would have looked like, though at one stage the leading characters might have borne an uncanny resemblance to Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley, but this telly-isation has worked a treat. Even two 90-minute episodes aren't enough Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
“Who is Mr Putin?” That was the question being bandied about by journalists and Kremlin watchers in the months after Boris Yeltsin’s out-of-the-blue New Year’s Eve 1999 resignation. Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB operative in East Germany, was prominent in the St Petersburg city administration through the early 1990s; called to Moscow in 1996, he held various Kremlin jobs, before being appointed head of the FSB (the KGB’s successor) in July 1998, and in August 1999 Russia’s prime minister. His 2000 victory in presidential elections came as little surprise, and his assertive, populist tactics ensured Read more ...
graeme.thomson
Jonathan Meades’s trawl through France began with the breezy theme tune from ‘Allo ‘Allo taking an unceremonious tumble from the turntable, signalling an instant war on cliché which continued with the promise of “no Piaf, no Dordogne, no ooh la la, no checked tablecloths”. The opening was quintessentially Meades – arch, parodic, iconoclastic, ever so slightly self-mocking. If Rick Stein was watching he’d have suffered a severe case of the shakes. This was an unvarnished portrait of a nation scrubbed clean of its lipstick, powder and paint.In the first of three films dissecting the nation that Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
As the series ended, it remained at great pains to repeatedly point out that this was the story of the British musical, its post-War success and how Oliver and Jesus Christ Superstar conquered Broadway. Yet it was hard not to sigh as episode three finished with Disney and Sir Cameron Mackintosh cosying up to stage Mary Poppins, which Mackintosh had the rights to. Universal hit Britain’s stages with Wicked, as DreamWorks has with Shrek The Musical. The story of the British musical concluded with corporate America moving in.It’s not hard to see the interest - British musicals are worth £1.5 Read more ...
howard.male
“So you’re telling me that somewhere on this farm there’s an animal that’s part spider and part something else?” No, this isn’t a snatch of dialogue from the climax of a shlocky B-movie. These words were spoken calmly if sceptically by biologist Adam Rutherford who was our guide on last night’s Horizon. Rather disappointingly, however, when we did get to see this animal it looked wholly goat, and not in the slightest bit spider - although we were assured that there was spider’s silk in its unpromisingly milky-looking milk.You see, the acquisition of spider silk in large quantities was Read more ...
Jasper Rees
What’s the opposite of a pilot? Griff Rhys Jones has not performed in a comedic capacity for nearly a decade and a half. When he did, he was always part of a larger company – first Not the Nine O’Clock News, then for 14 years in a partnership with Mel Smith. There must be a reason why he never struck out on his own. Alas, last night the reason was supplied by The One Griff Rhys Jones, a one-off half-hour of sketches topped by a bit of live stand-up, tailed by a reunion with Smith. They've already offered the same sort of exhumation to Ronnie Corbett and Jasper Carrott, who are at least still Read more ...