tv
The Ipcress File, ITV review – adaptation of Len Deighton thriller fires on all cylindersMonday, 07 March 2022
Sidney J Furie’s 1965 film The Ipcress File is a much-loved benchmark of its period. Stylish, sinister, witty and depicting a determinedly un-swinging London, it was conceived as the flipside to the absurdly glamorous James Bond movies and pulled it off with panache. Read more...
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Killing Eve, Series 4, BBC One review - has Villanelle found God?Sunday, 06 March 2022
“I’ve killed so many people. I don’t want to do it any more, any of it.” So said Villanelle (Jodie Comer) to Eve (Sandra Oh) in the last episode of the third series of Killing Eve, soon after she’d pushed Rhian Bevan, an assassin hired by the Twelve, under a train. Yeah, right, you may have thought, yawning cynically. Read more... |
Peaky Blinders, Series 6 review, BBC One - have we reached peak Peakies?Monday, 28 February 2022
They say this will be the final series of Peaky Blinders (BBC One) and its documenting of the tumultuous progress of the Shelby family, though creator Steven Knight promises there’s a feature film in the works. Read more... |
Chloe, BBC One review - good start, weak finishTuesday, 22 February 2022
Suddenly bogus-identity stories are all the rage. Netflix has been scoring big with Inventing Anna, the story of fake heiress Anna Delvey, as well as the The Tinder Swindler, a cautionary tale about a high-rolling conman who scams money from women he meets online. Read more... |
Inventing Anna, Netflix review - fake heiress saga outstays its welcomeMonday, 21 February 2022
Con artists in film or TV need to be clever, charming, mysterious or at least entertaining (for instance Leo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can or Michelle Dockery in the much-underrated Good Behaviour). Bafflingly, Anna Delvey, the notorious fake heiress whose story has been fictionalised by Shonda Rhimes’s Shondaland company in Inventing Anna (Netflix), is none of these things. Read more... |
This Is Going To Hurt, BBC One review - hospital drama with a realistic differenceTuesday, 15 February 2022
Painful more often than funny, this is not This Is Going To Hurt, the laugh-one-moment-rage-the-next book by obstetrician turned comedian Adam Kay. He’s written the script so essential truths remain. But the on-screen Adam Kay, national treasure Ben Whishaw – how happy Kay must have been about that – does relatively few lines to camera and what was essentially a diary has been shaped into a seven-part drama. Read more... |
Pam & Tommy, Disney+ review - the infamous sex tape that went globalWednesday, 02 February 2022
The transformation of Lily James, demure star of Yesterday, Cinderella and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, into smokin’ beach babe Pamela Anderson is the most memorable thing about Disney+'s uneven eight-part drama. Read more... |
The Teacher, Channel 5 review - inappropriate behaviour in the school environmentTuesday, 01 February 2022
Having had her own problems with alcohol and anxiety, Sheridan Smith no doubt felt some kinship with Jenna Garvey, the central character she plays in The Teacher. Evidently a talented educator who inspires loyalty and enthusiasm in her pupils, Jenna is also partial to a hectic night’s clubbing fuelled by reckless quantities of drink. Read more... |
Ozark, Series 4 Part 1, Netflix review - the Macbeths of the southern lakes in even deeper watersSaturday, 29 January 2022
They’re back, the Lord and Lady Macbeth of the Ozark District, otherwise sleek-seeming middle class Chicagoans Marty and Wendy Byrde. And thanks to the super-subtle performances of Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, we hate them more than ever – except when they’re up against worse. Read more... |
Final Account: Storyville, BBC Four review - confessions of the last survivors of the Nazi eraWednesday, 26 January 2022
Do we need another documentary about Nazi Germany? Yes, when it is as cogent and subtle as Luke Holland’s Final Account. Made over eight years while the veteran film-maker was battling with the cancer that killed him in 2020, it’s a tapestry of interviews with the ageing generation who lived under Hitler, a last chance to put them on camera. Read more... |
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