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Bear's Mission with David Walliams, ITV review - celebs go wild in the countryWednesday, 15 May 2019![]()
In the past, Bear Grylls has taken President Obama up an Alaskan glacier and trekked through the Swiss Alps with Roger Federer. Read more... |
Deep State, Series 2, Fox review - covert conspiracies in AfricaFriday, 10 May 2019![]()
Last year’s first season of Deep State featured cloak and dagger exploitations of chaos in the Middle East by the capitalist West and its intelligence services. Read more... |
Chernobyl, Sky Atlantic review - a glimpse of ArmageddonWednesday, 08 May 2019![]()
“I take it the safety test was a failure,” remarked Viktor Bryukhanov, director of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power station. You could say that again. Read more... |
Trust Me, Series 2 Finale, BBC One review - dodgy doctors and unreliable nursesWednesday, 08 May 2019![]()
Writer Dan Sefton’s four-part hospital drama reached a modestly satisfying conclusion as the phantom killer stalking the wards was finally unmasked, following the usual twists and misdirections obligatory in thrillerland. Read more... |
Line of Duty, BBC One, series 5 finale review - big highs and BiggeloeMonday, 06 May 2019![]()
The porn was a bit disappointing, was it not? Dear old Ted, no longer romantically active, admitted to being a user. The Superintendent Hastings fanclub sighed for sorrow to witness him toss away his status as an essentially decent heartthrob for the Saga generation. Sorry for your loss, ladies. It was also disappointing because the high-risk act of wiping his laptop turned out to have such a bathetic explanation. Read more... |
My Extreme Drugs Diary, Channel 5 review - the tedium of taking heroinFriday, 03 May 2019![]()
Jacob has just managed to shoot up. No easy matter because his veins are, he says, non-usable, and are like those of an 80-year-old man. He’s in his twenties and has been on heroin for six years. Unusually, he works full time, has a car and a flat – blood-spattered ones. When the heroin kicks in he doesn’t feel stoned but as if he could “work on some graphic design or art work”. Read more... |
The Widow, Series Finale, ITV review - Congolese drama parts company with realityWednesday, 01 May 2019![]()
Are brothers Harry and Jack Williams mounting a takeover bid for British TV? They’ve written (among other dramas) The Missing, Liar and Baptiste, and they produced Fleabag. However, judging by their co-writing efforts on The Widow (ITV) they’re spreading themselves thin. Read more... |
Bake Off: The Professionals, Channel 4 review - farcical but funWednesday, 01 May 2019![]()
TV cooking shows are mostly a pain in the butt. Masterchef, featuring the thuggish Gregg Wallace and John Torode along with India Fisher’s excruciatingly arch voiceover, is enough to provoke a massed hunger strike. The BBC’s Great British Bake Off may have featured national treasure Mary Berry, but her Miss Marple-ish charm was undermined by the ostentatiously pointless Mel and Sue. Read more... |
Game of Thrones, Sky Atlantic review - The Battle of WinterfellTuesday, 30 April 2019![]()
It’s been a memorable few days for audiences – big-screen and small – who happily invest years of their lives in epic storytelling. With the dust still settling on Avengers: Endgame, the final season of Game of Thrones has reached its mid-point with one of the most extraordinary episodes in its impressive history. Read more... |
Run for Your Life, ITV review - giving the nation's youth a sporting chanceWednesday, 24 April 2019![]()
With the knife crime epidemic seemingly raging out of control, and the government at its clueless worst as it stumbles around hoping for a quick fix, here was a look at a possible solution. 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...
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They stopped making the BBC’s original Bergerac in 1991, so you can hardly complain that this reboot is premature. John Nettles became...
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The war in Gaza has been going since 7 October 2023 – that’s about 15 months. But it’s strangely absent from British stages...
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Shelly (Pamela Anderson) is a dancer. She’s been with Le Razzle Dazzle, an outdated Las Vegas show that’s full of “breasts, rhinestones and joy”,...
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Why is it so hard to write a decent play about Bach? Maybe, in part, because there are no words...
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The musician Abel Selaocoe reaches out to the ancestors, African and European, continuing a journey that spans continents and centuries, an...
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Dublin theatregoers have been inundated with Irish family gatherings concealing secrets or half-buried sorrows, mixing “bog gothic” with very real...
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Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston just gets better and better, both as singer and as actor. Last night’s recital at Temple Church had an unusual and...
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Last night was the first time I had heard the 12 Ensemble, a string group currently Artist-in-Residence at the Wigmore Hall, and I was very...