sun 13/07/2025

tv

Too Much, Netflix - a romcom that's oversexed, and over here

Helen Hawkins

A thirtysomething American woman with wavering self-confidence, a tendency to talk too much and a longing for married bliss with Mr Darcy at his gorgeous country pile tries to reset her life post-breakup with a grown-up new job in London. Welcome to Bridget Jones country as seen through the lens of New Yorker Lena Dunham. 

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Insomnia, Channel 5 review - a chronicle of deaths foretold

Adam Sweeting

A mixture of legal drama, medical mystery and psychological thriller with creepy supernatural overtones, Insomnia sometimes seems to be trying to cram too much in, but it’s well worth sticking with it to the end to reap the full benefits.

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Live Aid at 40: When Rock'n'Roll Took on the World, BBC Two review - how Bob Geldof led pop's battle against Ethiopian famine

Adam Sweeting

“Bob’s not the kind of guy you can say no to,” said Sting, reminiscing about the origins of 1984’s Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. “He’s persistent.”

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Hill, Sky Documentaries review - how Damon Hill battled his demons

Adam Sweeting

Some world champion racing drivers make it look effortless, but it was never that way for Damon Hill. His path to the championship he won in 1996 had been fraught with difficulties, including not just his increasingly ill-tempered on-track battle with Michael Schumacher, but also the sometimes less-than-wholehearted support he received from the Williams team. Indeed, the team had already announced they were replacing him before he won the 1996 title.

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Outrageous, U&Drama review - skilfully-executed depiction of the notorious Mitford sisters

Helen Hawkins

If somebody submitted a treatment for a new costume drama series set in the 1930s in which not just one but two fictitious sisters from a fading aristocratic family pair off with leading fascists, while the cousin warning them off these liaisons is a future British PM, the pitch meeting probably wouldn’t last that long. 

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Prost, BBC 4 review - life and times of the driver they called 'The Professor'

Adam Sweeting

With Brad Pitt’s much-trumpeted F1 movie about to screech noisily into the multiplexes, it’s not a bad time to be reminded of the career of one of the sport’s indisputable greats.

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The Buccaneers, Apple TV+, Season 2 review - American adventuresses run riot in Cornwall

Adam Sweeting

Edith Wharton hadn’t finished her novel, The Buccaneers, when she died in 1937, but it was completed in 1993 by Marion Mainwaring. The result was not considered an unalloyed triumph, but there was certainly a lot more Edith Wharton in it than you’ll find in Apple TV+’s dramatisation.

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The Gold, Series 2, BBC One review - back on the trail of the Brink's-Mat bandits

Adam Sweeting

The first series of The Gold in 2023 was received rapturously, though apparently it only told one half of the story of the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery at Heathrow airport.

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Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new home in Edinburgh

Adam Sweeting

Netflix’s new detective-noir is a somewhat cosmopolitan beast. It’s written and directed by an American, Scott Frank, derived from a novel, Mercy, by the Danish crime writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, and set in Edinburgh (as well as other flavourful Scottish locations). There are plenty of Scots in the cast too, although it’s the very English Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey, The Crown etc) who takes the lead role of DCI Carl Morck.

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The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust in the lingerie trade

Adam Sweeting

As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it has been a wild ride for Baroness Mone of Mayfair, the self-made businesswoman who emerged from Dennistoun in Glasgow’s East End in the Nineties and created the Ultimo Bra. This revolutionary undergarment ingeniously enhanced the wearer’s cleavage, using a silicon gel to mimic the feel of real breast tissue.

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