TV
Jasper Rees
After the suave theatrical persuasions of Simon Schama and the earnest professorial shtick of Mary Beard, in episode six of Civilisations (BBC Two) it was the turn of David Olusoga, the third of the documentary's triumvirate of presenters. He began, naturally, with Africa, from which he derives the Nigerian part of his identity, but a bit of Africa transplanted to the British Museum which he was taken to see as a child making contact with his heritage.The Benin Bronzes, violently filched and sold off in the late 19th century, are exhibited far from their original home. This is of course true Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Fox is very keen to stress that Deep State is the first original production by its Europe & Africa division, the most obvious sign of which is that none of it was shot in New York or LA. But it has clearly been designed as a sleek international thriller with bags of export potential (it’s already being sold in the US and Europe, and series two is in the works), a kind of Jason Bourne-meets-The Night Manager.It may not be the most original show to have walked the face of the earth, but it packs a heavyweight cast and oozes cinematic gravitas with its luxurious photography and atmospheric Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Ordeal by Innocence belongs to a new and, you hope, short-lived sub-genre. The only other stablemate is All the Money in the World. Both were in the can and good to go when very serious sexual allegations were made against a member of the cast. For the latter, Ridley Scott reshot every scene which featured Kevin Spacey, subbing in Christopher Plummer. For BBC One’s now annual serving of an Agatha Christie drama, everyone came back to redo the bits which previously contained Ed Westwick and now have Christian Cooke (pictured below). Fortunately most of these seem to be interiors, as the Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Dylan’s Gospel years inspired and rankled in unequal measure – with the critical brickbats and audience boos often drowning out the strength and beauty of the impassioned musical ministries delivered by Dylan between 1979 and 1981, gathering around him his five-strong chorus of gospel singers, and a crack band that included Little Feet guitarist Fred Tackett, bassist Tim Drummond, Muscle Shoals keyboardist Spooner Oldham and pianist Terry Young, and veteran drummer Jim Keltner.Filmed at Toronto’s Massey Hall and in Buffalo, New York, Dylan’s gospel shows have long been a bootlegger’s holy Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It’s quite bold to create a multiracial comedy set in Hackney in the early Eighties, a not especially amusing period of riots, the Falklands War and Thatcherism. Happily, Hackney boy Idris Elba has managed it with a wry eye and a light comic touch.This Hackney isn’t the lethal drug-saturated combat zone portrayed in Top Boy, but an altogether more genial place where black, white and Asian residents rub along fairly comfortably, and manage to find ways to cope with non-PC attitudes. “We were thicker-skinned back then,” Elba has commented.Naturally, it’s Elba’s character Walter Easmon who’s at Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
A woman walks out on her husband and their three kids – two teens, one five-year-old - after 19 years of marriage. She doesn’t want custody. What could be so wrong with the man that she’s driven to such drastic action? Eleven months later, Greg (Christopher Eccleston, anguished but plucky, with a shaky Northern Irish accent) doesn’t seem to have the answer.This doesn’t help matters on his sticky first go at internet dating, where his opening gambit is to enthuse about Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test and the conversation, before the question of the whereabouts of his wife comes up, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Should Mum end here? There have been only two series on BBC Two, and it closed the second with all the characters poised for the next step. A third series has been commissioned, so there will be the opportunity to see what happens next for Cathy and Michael now they’ve hugged and, for the second time, held hands. In Spain they might even get round to kissing. But the bitter-sweet comedy of romantic yearning is one thing and fulfilment not the same at all. The dread precedent in sitcom is Niles and Daphne finally getting together in Frasier. The show was never the same again. Let's see.Mum was Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Ever nursed an immoderate fondness for Ingrid Bergman? In Her Own Words, a bio-documentary released in the cinema then on DVD in 2016 and shown last night on BBC One as part of the Imagine... strand, was an entrancing, melancholy memoir in letters, diaries and above all personal footage. Director Stig Björkman earned the trust of Bergman's four children, who submit candid recollections. These were woven into the larger odyssey of an orphan who sought a refuge in make-believe and ended up the biggest – and later, thanks to her elopement with Roberto Rossellini, the most scandalous – film Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The mystery remains of why they keep tucking away The Good Fight on More4, as they did with its illustrious predecessor The Good Wife. No disrespect to 4’s ancillary channel – now seemingly the designated last resting place of Grand Designs – but it’s like hanging a sign on the door saying “niche viewing, please knock quietly before entering”.In fact The Good Fight, having hit the ground running in series one, has stormed into series two swinging like a champ. Its finely tuned blend of character and beautifully detailed milieu accompanies a feeling of seamless inevitability in the plotting, Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
There is a jaguar in the house. Aged five days, and having been rejected by her mother, Maya has arrived from the wildlife park where she was born for hand-rearing by Giles Clark at his home in Kent. The cub is going to spend her early days with his family, with round-the-clock care from Giles, obsessed as he is with the situation of big cats worldwide.For Maya, it will be an attempt to make sure of her survival, not least as an ambassador for endangered species at the Big Cat Sanctuary nearby, where Clark works as head of cats and conservation. A charity, it houses some 50 big cats from 15 Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
When ITV scheduled this new series of The Durrells for mid-March, they probably didn’t imagine it would coincide with the return of the Beast from the East, with its blizzards and plummeting temperatures. Under these deep-frozen circumstances, what could be more reassuring than to batten down the hatches and take a trip to the glittering Mediterranean and the mountains, blue skies and historic architecture of Corfu?Profundity is not the ambition of Simon Nye’s dramatisations of Gerald Durrell’s books. In our age of knotty and treacherously-plotted thrillers, full of mutilated corpses and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
To Belgium for the latest continental instalment of murder really rather unpleasant. 13 Commandments, yet another crime drama brought to Channel 4 under the auspices of Walter Presents, began with the grizzliest manner imaginable. A man arrived at an airport, and was greeted reverentially by a driver who ferried him to a terraced house in a run-down street. There two thugs delivered a young woman into his possession. He drove her off to an abandoned house, tied her up, donned gloves and slit her throat. You rather hoped the camera would not show the last detail, but no, it panned just low Read more ...