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Lunch MonkeysThursday, 10 September 2009BBC3 must sometimes feel very strange to its target audience – reflecting back a gallery of skunk-addled obese teenage single-mums not far removed from the nightmares of a Daily Mail reader. There’s no doubting the fruits of its comedy department however, and the likes of Man Stroke Woman, Monkey Dust, The Mighty Boosh, Gavin and Stacey and Being Human are shows that any averagely well-adjusted 16-34-year-old might actually enjoy. The sparky... Read more... |
The Last Days of Lehman Brothers, BBC Two review - big money gone badWednesday, 09 September 2009
In July the BBC brought us Freefall, writer/director Dominic Savage's credit crunch drama. It was a crude morality tale of greed and gullibility, just about compensating for its blatantly schematic characters with sheer pace. Read more... |
Beeb Babes Go To WarTuesday, 08 September 2009Slickness is not always a virtue in a television presenter, and Katherine Jenkins (The Week We Went To War, BBC1) has some way to go before she risks being accused of it. Her chief weapons are her blonde hair, cleavage and searchlight smile -- she isn't so much the new Vera Lynn as one of those pneumatic dream-babes that American aircrews used to paint on the noses of their B17s -- but even so she struggles to... Read more... |
Beatles For (Multiplatform) SaleMonday, 07 September 2009
Oasis have split up, but The Beatles keep getting bigger. This week, in a synchronised splurge of Beatle product of almost D-Day like proportions, their complete remastered albums are being reissued, the group appear in virtual form in the computer game The Beatles: Rock Band, and the BBC continues the Beatles Week which kicked off in a blaze of Kleenex-moistening nostalgia on Saturday. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Mrs. Warren's Profession, Garrck Theatre review - mothe...
How do you make Bernard Shaw sear the stage anew? You can trim the text, as the director Dominic Cooke has, bringing this prolix writer's 1893...
The Phoenician Scheme review - further adventures in the idi...
It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it. Few filmmakers have bent the term “auteur” to their own ends more boldly than...
Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi
Ammar 808 is the high octane vehicle for the Tunisian-born producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, now based in Denmark. His first album Maghreb United...
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review - can this...
Whether it is or isn’t the final Mission: Impossible film, there’s a distinct fin-de-siècle feel about this eighth instalment, and not...
Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality...
In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV...
The Crucible, Shakespeare's Globe review - stirring acc...
A society ruled by hysteria. Lurid lies that carry more currency than reality. There’s no shortage of reasons that...
Pixies, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - indie veterans pack...
Pixies might just be the ultimate Radio 6 Dad band. They’ve been around (on-and-off) for around 40 years; they’ve got a fine back catalogue of...
Album: Sports Team - Boys These Days
How do you solve a problem like Sports Team? Taking them at face value, they’re a living metaphor for the slow music biz relegation of the working...