tue 24/06/2025

tv

Peaky Blinders, series 4, BBC Two review - new threats, same thrills

Owen Richards

BBC Two’s flagship crime drama Peaky Blinders returns for another guilty dose of slo-mo walking, flying sparks and anachronistic soundtracks.

Read more...

Motherland / Detectorists review - comedy classics go at their own pace

Barney Harsent

As Motherland settles down into its first series proper after last year’s pilot, it still seems to be going at a fair gallop.

Read more...

Storyville: Toffs, Queers and Traitors, BBC Four review - the spy who was a scamp

Tom Birchenough

“There is something odd, I suppose, about anyone who betrays their country.” It’s an excellent opening line, particularly when delivered in director George Carey’s nicely querulous narrative voice, for Toffs, Queers and Traitors (BBC Four).

Read more...

Howards End, BBC One review - EM Forster adaptation is finding its footing

Matt Wolf

Can it really be a quarter-century since that finest of all Merchant-Ivory film adaptations, Howards End, was first released?

Read more...

Trump: An American Dream/Angry, White and American, Channel 4 review - a timely look at Trump and the causes of Trump

Barney Harsent

There are, as I’m sure many of you are aware, four key stages of political change. Denial, anger, acceptance and, finally, documentary film-making.

Read more...

The A Word, Series 2, BBC One review - is it turning into 'Emmerdale' with a twist of autism?

Saskia Baron

At its weakest The A Word is just Emmerdale with a twist of autism, especially when the drama swivels away from the little boy to focus on adult infidelities, a grumpy patriarch, sibling rivalries and comedy Poles wisecracking in subtitles.

Read more...

Babylon Berlin, Sky Atlantic review – brilliantly promising Euro-noir

Owen Richards

Sky Atlantic’s German import is an intoxicating mix of intrigue and betrayal, set in the excessive days of the Weimar Republic. Gripping stories and extravagant production meet in the opening two episodes of this brilliantly promising Euro-noir.

Read more...

I Know Who You Are, Series 2, BBC Four review - get on with it, por favor

Jasper Rees

Here we go again then. The “first series”, as the BBC are calling it after the fact, of I Know Who You Are slammed the brakes on and juddered to a bewildering halt back in the middle of August. Almost everyone who’d sat through the plot dodgems of those 10 episodes will have had the same reaction: eh?

Read more...

Queen: Rock the World, BBC Four review - we won't rock you

Jasper Rees

Forty years ago Whispering Bob Harris made a documentary about Queen. He eavesdropped on them as they recorded the album News of the World and then followed them around America on tour.

Read more...

Strike Back, Series 6, Sky 1 review - more stories for boys

Adam Sweeting

Laughable though it frequently – oh go on then, always – is, Strike Back is obviously a target-rich environment for those of a thespian persuasion.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Schubertiade 3 at the Ragged Music Festival, Mile End review...

Aldeburgh offered strong competition for the three evenings of Schubert at the discreetly restored Ragged School Museum, but I knew I had to...

Showmanship, Hampstead Theatre review - lip-synced investiga...

I think my problem is that when I should have been listening in school assemblies or RE lessons, I had the Tom Tom Club’s joyous “...

Immersive Night Music Show, Makita, Londinium Ensemble, Worl...

To mark this year’s summer solstice, a small audience gathered at London’s newest concert venue, the World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens, a small and...

theartsdesk on Vinyl 91: Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Tropical F...

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Frank From Blue Velvet I Am Frank (Property of the Lost) + Column258...

Kieran Hodgson, Soho Theatre review - a love affair soured b...

Kieran Hodgson is known to television viewers from Two Doors Down and to online fans for his spoofs of TV dramas; but comedy...

Outrageous, U&Drama review - skilfully-executed depictio...

If somebody submitted a treatment for a new costume drama series set in the...

Album: Durand and the Indications - Flowers

Neo-soul devotees Durand Jones and the Indications mine a vein of sensuous sounds, at the soft end of a genre that's partly defined by the raw...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Sonics - High Time

“Theirs is truly rock in extremis, a précis of the youthful impetuosity and cathartic chaos at the heart of real rock ’n roll.”

This extract...