TV
Adam Sweeting
The national urge for self-flagellation on television continues apace with Michael Winner’s preposterous new series. Not content with having to eat cockroaches in Borneo, never mind being tongue-lashed by John Torode and that thuggish bloke who looks like a bailiff on Masterchef, the population is now queueing up to invite a cantankerous elderly man into their own homes to ridicule their cooking. At the end of the series, the winner gets to cook dinner for Michael's celebrity chums, such as Kym Marsh and Andrew Neil. A Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one. Winner is in his element as a Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It could so easily have been just another bit of God-slot box-ticking. But The Bible: A History, in which Channel 4 has invited guest presenters to mull over some aspect of the Good Book, has been exciting a lot of comment from viewers. Summoning Gerry Adams to present a film about the life of Christ won't have done anything to dampen audience ardour. Channel 4 have responded by organising a public discussion. It takes place at the British Library next week on Wednesday 3 March at 6.30pm. Roger Bolton chairs, and the panel consists of three of The Bible's presenters - historian Tom Holland, Read more ...
gerard.gilbert
The new series of the Glenn Close litigation drama Damages began like the previous two series of Damages – in the future tense. Someone deliberately slammed their car into the side of Patty Hewes’s car, and a grisly discovery was made in a wheelie bin. How we get to this dénouement will be revealed over the next three months. Am I up for such a commitment? Because miss just 10 minutes of this tortuous legal thriller and you’re up the proverbial creek. It’s easy to see why Damages does extraordinarily well in DVD box-set sales – if you’re going to get hooked, then it’s good to have some Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
As one of the opening captions put it, "you couldn't make it up", and this sprightly drama about the House of Commons expenses scandal duly tacked its way skilfully up the channel between satire and slapstick. Concluding correctly that wallowing in moral outrage was not the way to handle a subject whose full ramifications have yet to land on us (and them) with their full crushing force, writer Tony Saint instead deftly depicted the Commons as a kind of Swiftian monstrosity, ludicrous yet malevolent.Speaker Michael Martin, Labour MP for Glasgow Springburn, was presented as an antediluvian Read more ...
theartsdesk
Read theartsdesk's reviews and interviews for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award-winners.The Hurt Locker: Best film, Best director, Best original screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Sound
Fish Tank: Outstanding British film
A Prophet : Outstanding foreign film
An Education: Carey Mulligan, Best actress. Interview with Carey Mulligan
A Single Man: Colin Firth, Best actor
Inglourious Basterds: Christoph Waltz, Best supporting actor
Precious: Mo’nique, Best supporting actress
The Twilight Saga: Kristen Stewart, Rising Star
Up in the Air: Best adapted Read more ...
Jasper Rees
For six years from 1988, when Sinn Fein was banned from direct broadcasting, Gerry Adams could be seen on television, but not heard. Instead, actors would read his words while his lips soundlessly moved. What would the architects of that ban have said if they’d been told that one day the political face of the Provisional IRA would be given an hour on television to make a programme about Christ? "Jesus wept?" "He’s got a bloody cheek?"We already know what the Daily Mail has said. Adams has been paid 10 grand for his participation in The Bible: A History, and do they not like that. In this Read more ...
sue.steward
Latin Music USA is a long-overdue exploration of the Latino influence on American popular music. The four-part BBC Four Friday-night series zooms in on the bicultural American populations rooted in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico, but living in their original entry points, Miami, New York, LA and the Tex-Mex border. The series examines the lifestyles and politics behind the music and their impact in the US beyond Spanish-speaking neighbourhoods. “Each programme looks and feels different, matching the cultures,” explains the London director, Jeremy Marre. In the early days, the Cubans and Puerto Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It was Stacey whodunnit. EastEnders’ first live broadcast last night, to celebrate 25 years on BBC One, ended with Stacey Branning (Lacey Turner) declaring, “It was me. I did it. I killed Archie. It was me.” So now we know, as one of the most drawn-out storylines in the history of soaps finally reached its conclusion (Archie Mitchell was killed at Christmas). Only it didn’t, because next week’s episodes (which were pre-recorded as normal, with dual storylines to cover all 10 suspects' possible guilt or innocence) will explain why Stacey done it, as they say in this mythical part of east Read more ...
gerard.gilbert
That title has been troubling me. The Great Offices of State is so stolid and dull, like an illustrated Ladybird children’s book from the 1950s - The Flags of the Commonwealth, or some such. And then you start trying to think of alternatives, a play on Yes, Minister perhaps, and you soon see that this flippancy wouldn't do justice to what is in fact a masterful achievement - the sort of television series that will (or should) be shown in schools and universities for years to come. Perhaps they should have simply called it Another Political Documentary Series by the Great Michael Cockerell, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Though children’s TV series Skippy The Bush Kangaroo was only in production from 1966 to 1968, it continues to resonate deafeningly with Australians, who are still apt to break into the theme tune or start doing kangaroo-hops round their living rooms. In fact it isn’t just Australians, since its 91 episodes were shown in 128 countries and dubbed into numerous exotic languages. Swedish was not among them, since Swedish child psychologists were violently opposed to children being encouraged to believe that animals could talk. But for many viewers, Skippy put Australia on the map in the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
On Daniel Ellsberg's first day in his new job at the Pentagon in 1964, working under Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred. This engagement between American destroyers and North Vietnamese torpedo boats was used as the pretext for President Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam war, and marked the start of one of the most traumatic eras in recent American history. For Ellsberg, it was a period in which he was transformed from a strategic analyst enthusiastically committed to America's global struggle against Communism into an anti-war activist Read more ...
graeme.thomson
Fife, like Scotland itself, is a mass of contradictions compressed into a relatively small space: beautiful beaches lie in the shadow of lowering tower blocks; the pink, plump prosperity of St Andrews rubs against the scar tissue of former mining towns like Methil; tourism nestles uncomfortably close to despair. Fife provided Jonathan Meades with the location of his third and final instalment of the immensely enjoyable Off Kilter series on BBC Two, but the state of the entire nation was his theme.With Meades, you expect shameless partiality, skewed perspectives and a tendency towards hammy Read more ...