tv
Philharmonia, Channel 4 review - death on the podiumMonday, 01 June 2020
Great idea to use a symphony orchestra as the basis for a TV drama, because all of human life is there. Read more... |
Space Force, Netflix review - fails to launchFriday, 29 May 2020
Since Donald Trump's election as US President in 2016, I imagine satirists have slowly lost the will to live – as nothing they can write can outdo his buffoonery. Read more... |
Unprecedented, BBC Four review - perspectives on the pandemicWednesday, 27 May 2020
This short series of new dramas (on BBC Four) by a group of leading playwrights was commissioned by Headlong and Century Films, a week before the virus lockdown was announced on 23 March, and represents an artistic first... Read more... |
A House Through Time, Series 3, BBC Two review - Bristol under the microscopeWednesday, 27 May 2020
David Olusoga’s A House Through Time concept (BBC Two) has proved a popular hit, using a specific property as a keyhole through which to observe historical and social changes. After previously picking sites in Liverpool and Newcastle, this time he’s chosen Bristol, the city where he has lived for over 20 years. Read more... |
Defending Jacob, Apple TV+ review - does murder run in the family?Saturday, 23 May 2020
Since it debuted in November last year, Apple TV+ has barely made a dent in a market largely shaped by Netflix, but this eight-part adaptation of William Landay’s bestselling novel is a decisive step in the right direction. Read more... |
What's the Matter with Tony Slattery?, BBC Two review - absorbing but troubling search for answersThursday, 21 May 2020
In the late Eighties and Nineties, Tony Slattery became one of the most ubiquitous faces on television, appearing regularly on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Have I Got News For You while popping up in quizzes and sitcoms all over the place (as well as in the movies Peter’s Friends and The Crying Game... Read more... |
A Very British Hotel Chain: Inside Best Western, Channel 4 review - requiem for the hospitality industry?Wednesday, 20 May 2020
Do TV companies get some sort of financial incentive to use the phrase “A Very British…” in their programme titles? This now-meaningless descriptor has been applied to airlines, brothels, political coups, the Renaissance, Margaret Thatcher, sex scandals, Brexit and lord knows what else. When you can’t think of an original title, you know what to do. Read more... |
Harry's Heroes: Euro Having a Laugh, ITV review - jokey documentary delivers painful emotional truthsWednesday, 20 May 2020
Former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly famously commented that football is far more serious than a matter of life and death. Read more... |
Arena: The Changin' Times of Ike White, BBC Four review - musical mystery becomes personalTuesday, 19 May 2020
The most obvious comparison for The Changin’ Times of Ike White (BBC Four) is 2012’s Searching for Sugar Man, with its story of a potential star having vanished into thin air at the brink of fame and fortune. Read more... |
Hollywood, Netflix review - rosy escapism serving good causesThursday, 14 May 2020
If you're catering for wish fulfilment, you might as well go the whole hog. Some say that Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, in their latest peachy extravaganza, aim no higher than the cheesier fantasies of the late 1940s Hollywood they take into neverland. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Disney+...
Director Thom Zimny has become the audio-visual Boswell to Bruce Springsteen’s Samuel Johnson, having made...
Blitz review - racism persists as bombs batter London
Blitz, set on a vast CGI canvas in September 1941, is an improbable boy’s adventure tale that depicts the misery and terror that was...
The Buddha of Suburbia, Barbican Theatre review - farcical f...
Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia begins like this: “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost...
Small Things Like These review - less is more in stirring Ir...
There’s much to note and commend about Small Things Like These, a sensitive, gorgeously shot and moving adaptation of Claire Keegan’...
Anora review - life lesson for a kick-ass sex worker
Anora has had so much hype since it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May that it doesn’t really need another reviewer weighing in. Sean...
Album: Willie Nelson - Last Leaf on the Tree
Well, seems like only yesterday when I reviewed Willie Nelson’s last album, Borderline, an excellent set from the man’s ninth decade, and...
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Rigoletto, English National Opera review - another hit for M...
How we used to mock those stuck-in-the-mud opera houses that wheeled out the same moth-eaten production of some box-office favourite decade after...
How To Survive Your Mother, King's Head Theatre review...
It is unsurprising to learn in the post-show Q&A that each audience receives Jonathan Maitland’s new play based on his 2006...
Album: The Cure - Songs of a Lost World
Could melancholia be an elixir of creative youth? Or is it that sad people were never really that youthful, so age suits them? Certainly it seems...