tv
Occupied, series 2, Sky Atlantic review - political conflicts looking all too actualThursday, 19 April 2018![]()
Eight months have passed since the Russians invaded Norway in the first season of Jo Nesbo’s neo-Cold War thriller. Real-life events have only made Occupied seem more relevant. Read more... |
Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation, BBC One review - ‘He was a cool guy and everybody loved him’Wednesday, 18 April 2018![]()
When doctors told Doreen Lawrence her son had died she thought, "That’s not true." Spending time with his body in the hospital, aside from a cut on his cheek, it seemed to her he was sleeping. The death of a child will always be strange, and in the aftermath Neville, his father and her husband, even wondered if he might have been struck by the Biblical curse of the loss of his first-born. Read more... |
The Queen's Green Planet, ITV review - right royal arborealsTuesday, 17 April 2018
QCC isn’t the name of a new football club, nor some higher qualification for those toiling at the Bar, but stands for "Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy". Had you heard of it? On the eve of the Commonwealth conference, along came Jane Treays's gently hilarious, and finally rather tender film to fill in the gaps. Read more... |
Lifeline, Channel 4 review - Spanish sci-fi drama on speedMonday, 16 April 2018![]()
It is with some trepidation that the globe-trotting viewer embarks on a new drama from Spain. Last year in BBC Four stole the best part of 20 hours of some lives with its split-series transmission of the maddening I Know Who You Are. Read more... |
Law and Order, BBC Four review - not a fair copFriday, 13 April 2018![]()
In the late 1970s the British establishment sustained a bloody nose. Roland Huntford published his debunking of Captain Scott and Anthony Blunt was outed as the Fourth Man, while the Old Etonian Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe was tried for conspiracy to murder. Read more... |
Boy George and Culture Club: From Karma to Calamity, BBC FourThursday, 12 April 2018![]()
The title signalled what was coming so clearly, it may as well have been called When Bands End Badly: the two camps, the arguments and sniping and the eventual collapse of Culture Club’s US and UK tour to promote an album of new material. It’s hardly a surprise though – this is a band that, history shows, would have benefitted from the visible presence of an armed UN peacekeeping force. Read more... |
Below the Surface, Series Finale, BBC Four review - tense and twisty to the bitter endSunday, 08 April 2018![]()
In the previous couple of episodes, some light began to seep into the subterranean gloom of the Copenhagen kidnappers, or at any rate onto their identities and motivations. Read more... |
The City and the City, BBC Two review - detection in four dimensionsSaturday, 07 April 2018![]()
It’s difficult to grasp in your imagination, never mind filming it and putting it on TV. In China Miéville’s source novel, dramatised here by Tony Grisoni, the twin cities of Besźel and Ul Quoma exist side by side, and in some areas even overlap. However, citizens of either city are forbidden to see each other and must learn to “unsee” people, buildings or objects from the opposing one. Read more... |
Civilisations: First Contact, BBC Two review - David Olusoga goes for goldFriday, 06 April 2018![]()
After the suave theatrical persuasions of Simon Schama and the earnest professorial shtick of Mary Beard, in episode six of Civilisations (BBC Two) it was the turn of David Olusoga, the third of the documentary's triumvirate of presenters. Read more... |
Deep State, Fox review - secrets, lies and spiesFriday, 06 April 2018![]()
Fox is very keen to stress that Deep State is the first original production by its Europe & Africa division, the most obvious sign of which is that none of it was shot in New York or LA. 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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Brighton metallers Architects have weathered through various tribulations in their almost twenty-year career. Formed by twins Dan and Tom Searle,...
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There’s something exhilarating about seeing bands right at the very, very dawn of their careers. Will they be headlining the Houston Astrodome in...
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A cello concerto received its UK premiere in Manchester last night – almost 100 years after it was written. It’s by Maria Herz, a German-Jewish...
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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...