tue 17/06/2025

tv

Squid Game, Netflix review - murderous game show hits the ratings jackpot

Adam Sweeting

This Korean-made show suddenly became Netflix’s all-time greatest hit, demonstrating once again the irresistible allure of a game show which ruthlessly massacres its contestants.

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Ridley Road, BBC One review - Jewish community fights Nazi nightmare in 1960s London

David Nice

Neo-Nazis held a Trafalgar Square rally under the banner "Free Britain from Jewish Control" in the year of my birth; I had no idea until I watched Ridley Road. Most of us know about the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, but, until now, next to nothing about the Jewish resistance against fascist Colin Jordan and his gang of thugs, some of them cynically recruited from borstals and children’s homes, 17 years after the end of the Second World War.

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Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enough

Harriet Thompson

Born in 1840, Thomas Hardy lived a life of in-betweens. Modern yet traditional, the son of a builder who went on to become a famous novelist, he belonged both to Dorset and London. When he died, his ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey, but his heart was buried separately alongside his first wife in the village of Stinsford in Dorset.

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Schumacher, Netflix review - authorised version of the life of an F1 legend

Adam Sweeting

Michael Schumacher’s skiing accident in December 2013, which left the seven-times Formula One world champion with a severe brain injury, added a shocking postscript to one of the greatest stories in motor racing. Having survived a decades-long driving career which included numerous accidents (including a motorcycle smash in 2009 which was apparently far more serious than the Schumi camp would admit), he was near-fatally stricken on a family Christmas holiday in Méribel.

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The North Water, BBC Two review - a terrible voyage into the great beyond

Adam Sweeting

It’s perhaps unfortunate that The North Water arrives on BBC Two only a few months after The Terror, since it’s impossible to avoid the parallels between them.

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The Blood Pact, All 4 review - a (tax) inspector falls

Sebastian Scotney

In Klem (meaning "clamp"’), we find ourselves in the calm, ordered and ordinary world of Amsterdam-Zuid. There are parents’ evenings to be attended, school plays to be watched. The area’s many pretty parks are just perfect for the early morning jog. Tall green bins stand in neat rows.

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Clickbait, Netflix review - fiendishly cunning thriller keeps everybody guessing

Adam Sweeting

It seems Covid-19 may not be the only plague threatening mankind.

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The White Lotus, Sky Atlantic review - dark side of a tropical paradise

Adam Sweeting

As we saw recently in M Night Shyamalan’s Old, a visit to a holiday resort in a tropical location can have ghastly consequences.

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Britannia, Series 3, Sky Atlantic review - murder, mysticism and anaemic slapstick

Adam Sweeting

According to series newcomer Sophie Okonedo, arriving in Roman Britain as Hemple, the wife of David Morrissey’s General Aulus, "I was already a fan of the show. I love it so much… I’d been thinking this is such a brilliant show to be in.”

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Hit & Run, Netflix review - Lior Raz excels as a hard man on a hazardous mission

Adam Sweeting

Lior Raz is Israel’s very own man with a very particular set of skills. However, unlike the looming 6ft 4in Liam Neeson who plays Bryan Mills in the Taken films, Raz is stocky, shaven-headed and clocks in at a mere 5ft 7in.

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