tv
The Pale Horse, BBC One review - when in doubt, do another Agatha Christie remakeMonday, 10 February 2020
You could sometimes begin to believe that the notion of original TV drama is dying out, replaced by an interminable stream of adaptations and remakes. Did somebody mention Dracula? Read more...
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Secrets of the Museum, BBC Two review - the incredible hidden worlds of the V&AFriday, 07 February 2020
The nation’s public attics – museums – hold a huge jumble of objects collected and used in all sorts of ways to tell us stories of past and present. Read more... |
The L Word: Generation Q, Sky Atlantic review - is the new Word as good as the old Word?Wednesday, 05 February 2020
The L Word originally ran for six seasons between 2004 and 2009, and its then-revolutionary depiction of the lives of a group of lesbians in Los Angeles won it both a fanatical audience and acclaim for its game-changing content, exploring such topics as same-sex marriage, gay adoption and female sexuality which weren't being seen elsewhere on TV. Read more... |
Universal Credit: Inside the Welfare State, BBC Two review - drowning in a bureaucratic quagmireWednesday, 05 February 2020
The benefits system is feared for its resemblance to a vast poisonous swamp, from whose clutches many travellers fail to return. Universal Credit began to be rolled out in 2013, having been announced in 2010 by Conservative work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, and was supposed to bulldoze a path through the welfare jungle. However, it remains mired in controversy. Read more... |
Baghdad Central, Channel 4 review - thriller set in the aftermath of the Iraq warTuesday, 04 February 2020
Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji of the Iraqi police may be set to become one of those classically dog-eared, depressed and down-at-heel detectives who have proliferated in crime fiction. He could join a lineage that includes Martin Cruz Smith’s battered Russian sleuth Arkady Renko, or Bernie Gunther, anti-hero of Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy. Or he may create his own category of one. Read more... |
Shock of the Nude with Mary Beard, BBC Two review - when does art become erotica?Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Are you a fan of oysters or Marmite? Mary Beard is not to everybody’s taste, but love her or loathe her she is not only a distinguished academic but a ubiquitous writer and presenter of classical histories, connected travels, and ruminations on societal problems. Read more... |
Belsen: Our Story, BBC Two review - inside the unfathomable horror of the HolocaustWednesday, 29 January 2020
The 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz reminds us once again of the unfathomable horror of the Holocaust. The revival of anti-semitism in our own country and elsewhere is why it’s worth telling these terrible stories again and again. Read more... |
Young, Sikh and Proud, BBC One review - siblings divided by their attitudes to faithWednesday, 29 January 2020
Journalist Sunny Hundal has a long track record as a writer and blogger concerned with issues of race, politics and ethnicity. Read more... |
Stewart Copeland's Adventures in Music, BBC Four review - an essay on the emotional power of musicSaturday, 25 January 2020
Drums away: Stewart Copeland, drummer with The Police and a score of other groups, composer for films, video games and operas, now beams enthusiastically at us from the small screen.
Read more...
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Crazy Delicious, Channel 4 review - the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV ?Wednesday, 22 January 2020
The race continues to create the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV. Channel 4’s new brainchild, Crazy Delicious, finds the culinary nutty professor Heston Blumenthal teaming up with fellow-judges Carla Hall and Niklas Ekstedt to become the “Gods of Food”. Read more... |
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Guards at the Taj, Orange Tree Theatre review - miniature ma...
It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he calls an “aeroplat”. As...
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...