TV
Adam Sweeting
Apparently this is the first time an Ian McEwan novel has been dramatised for television, but whether The Child in Time was the best choice for that singular honour is open to question. It’s watchable enough, but this version (made by Benedict Cumberbatch’s production company SunnyMarch) feels like a precis of the book with a lot of the original’s resonances and nuances only glimpsed from afar.Maybe a three-part serialisation might have worked better than this 90-minute one-off, but if you’re unfamiliar with the book (which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel Award) you may find yourself scratching Read more ...
Jasper Rees
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 rural life. The joke is it’s mainly horrible for a narrow spectrum of predictable reasons. It’s muddy, petrol costs a bomb, bored kids are forever after lifts, and as for the people…Now Jack Dee is in on the joke. Bad Move, which he has co-written with Pete Sinclair, finds Steve and his wife Nicky (Kerry Godliman), who seem to be Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Magnum was founded just after the war in 1947 as a co-operative that ensured both the quality of its members, and their clout in dealing with the media world. Its longevity is testimony to its success. The original founders were war-hardened photo journalists and included Robert Capa and David “Chim” Seymour; the first woman member was Eve Arnold, who joined in 1951.The linking of its members to cinema was the hook for this fascinating French documentary on BBC Four, written and directed by Sophie Bassaler, with a delicate voiceover by Sharon Mann and evocative music by Harry Allouche. There Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
What would Saturday nights be without BBC Four’s regular subtitle-fests? Black Lake, their new Swedish import, has nothing in the way of originality to recommend it, but its tale of a haunted ski resort somewhere out towards the Norwegian border may help to ward off seasonal ennui as temperatures fall and the evenings draw in. The story so far: Johan (Filip Berg), an impatient young capitalist, wants to buy the derelict resort of Svartsjön, and gathers together a bunch of his buddies go and check the place out. Initially it seems like the kind of experience the average Brit Read more ...
Barney Harsent
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 encounter Joan Beech on the roads. She was one of the (mainly nonagenerian) drivers who had agreed to have their driving assessed to see whether they were still roadworthy. In the case of Joan (pictured below), it was a firm "no". Wrong gear, a failure to distinguish between different gears (or, indeed, left and right) and the identification of a Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There are two Williams brothers – Jack and Harry – who are mainly known for two series of The Missing. No chance of the Williamses going missing. Quite the reverse. As of today – Monday 11 September – they seem to have cloned. Two new drama series by the Williams boys have started on BBC One and ITV at exactly the same minute, and they will both conclude at the same instant six episodes later. One can only imagine that the writers begged and pleaded one or both channels to separate them in the schedules, but it didn’t happen and here we are.On ITV there’s Liar. On BBC One, bid welcome to Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
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 horrified to be accused of such a thing.As you may have heard, the scriptwriting Williams brothers (Harry and Jack) – famed for, among other things, The Missing – have been busy. Their six-part mystery Liar kicked off at exactly the same time as their six-part thriller Rellik on BBC One, a coincidence almost as uncanny as three hurricanes tearing up Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Sometimes you can find yourself hankering after those old-fashioned TV dramas where you got a self-contained story every week, so you can drop in on it at any time and still keep up with what’s going on. With Tin Star, on the other hand, you need to stick with it for at least four episodes before the scope of the story begins to reveal itself and it starts to exert a painful grip.For a while, it’s like Fargo meets Fortitude, with perhaps a squeeze of Lilyhammer. Surly British cop Jim Worth (Tim Roth) has moved to the chilly wilderness of Alberta to become sheriff of a no-horse town. With his Read more ...
Barney Harsent
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 sure-fire hit. Like inviting friends you haven’t seen in years to stay and lingering, pre-weekend nerves dissipating as soon as they walk in the door, something felt entirely right about it. Time had passed, people had changed, but the feel of them was the same. The start of the latest series suggests that this is set to continue with economy Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
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), but an ex-cop convinced his successors are making a dreadful mistake.Eight years ago someone nicknamed The Crow abducted three women who were never found. Nevertheless, a man called Luke Griffin (Stephen Lord) was jailed for life for their murders. Now, in what appears to be a copycat crime, Julie (Lynsey McLaren), the lovely partner of Liverpool Read more ...
Barney Harsent
They say that living well is the best revenge. To be fair, they also say it’s a dish best served cold and I’m pretty sure they’re thinking of gazpacho, so I’m not entirely clear how much real meaning is to be found in these dictums. I’m also not sure how much real meaning is to be found in BBC One’s infidelity drama Doctor Foster, which returned to our screens for a second series and saw Suranne Jones as the titular doc left reeling by the return of her cheating hubby, Simon (Bertie Carvel) and his former fling, now wife, Kate (Jodie Comer). We’ll need to, if possible, ignore the fact Read more ...
graham.rickson
Morag Tinto’s documentary is a profile of composer Alma Deutscher, who hit the headlines at the end of last year when her opera based on the Cinderella story premiered in Vienna. What’s unusual about that, you might ask? Apart from being female, Alma was 11 years old when she finished writing it. Eleven. Think about it. I can’t recall much about my own talents at that age, apart from being able to tie my own shoelaces and build passable models out of Lego.Alma is the real deal; frighteningly talented but disarmingly likeable. We see her at the family home in Surrey, the footage intercut with Read more ...