A dismaying exercise in nostalgia: Simon Schama’s History of Now reviewed
For those who consider themselves traditional liberals (full disclosure: such as me) Sunday’s first episode of Simon Schama’s History of…
Riveting: C4’s Who Stole the World Cup reviewed
Have you ever seen film of the England 1966 football team holding the World Cup at the Royal Garden Hotel,…
Strange bedfellows: Charles Dickens and the popstar Prince
Nick Hornby yokes the two in an enjoyable jeu d’esprit – but, apart from troubled childhoods and prodigious energy, the thing they really share is Hornby’s admiration
Refreshingly macho: BBC1’s SAS Rogue Heroes reviewed
Sunday’s SAS Rogue Heroes – about the founding of perhaps Britain’s most famous regiment – began with a revealing variation…
Touchingly free of cynicism: C4's Somewhere Boy reviewed
At the start of Somewhere Boy, an 18-year-old boy is rescued from an isolated house by his aunt Sue following…
The BBC's fairly desperate new reality show: Unbreakable reviewed
On first impression, you might have thought that Unbreakablewas just a fairly desperate reality show cobbled together from I’m a…
Well-meaning thriller with moments of implausibility: BBC1's Crossfire reviewed
Crossfire was a three-part drama in more ways than one. Running every night from Tuesday to Thursday, it brought together…
Will you be able to get through the ponderous aphorisms without giggling? The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reviewed
Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…
The fiasco of Operation Yewtree: C4's The Accused – National Treasures on Trial reviewed
At 4.38 a.m., one morning in October 2013, the radio presenter Paul Gambaccini was understandably asleep when the doorbell rang.…
Who are these pathologically liberal rozzers? Channel 4's Night Coppers reviewed
Grizzled police officers of the old school should probably avoid Channel 4’s Night Coppers for reasons of blood pressure. Like…
A very classy thriller indeed: C4's The Undeclared War reviewed
The Undeclared War has many of the traditional signifiers of a classy thriller: the assiduous letter-by-letter captioning of every location;…
A masterclass in evenhandedness: James Graham’s Sherwood reviewed
James Graham has made his considerable name writing political-based dramas of a highly unusual type: non-polemical ones. And this certainly…
On the brink of delivering something special: Sky's The Midwich Cuckoos reviewed
A youngish couple leave London and drive off excitedly to make a fresh start in more rural surroundings. They demonstrate…
A gentle soap opera with nudity and book chat: Conversations with Friends reviewed
It’s official: television has a new genre. Its features include leisurely half-hour episodes, plenty of literary chat, several scenes set…
Lacks the bite and bracing malevolence of Call My Agent!: Amazon's Ten Percent reviewed
In theory, it should be a perfect match. John Morton – the man behind the brilliantly assured sitcom W1A which…
The chief characteristic so far has been nervousness: Chivalry reviewed
Chivalry – written by and starring Sarah Solemani and Steve Coogan – is a comedy drama about post-#MeToo Hollywood life.…
An impeccably rule-observing programme from the BBC: Art That Made Us reviewed
Art That Made Us is an ambitious new series, firmly in the ‘history of something in a load of different…
Relentless and shouty: BBC2's Then Barbara met Alan reviewed
BBC2’s one-off drama Then Barbara Met Alan(Monday) told the true story of how two disabled performers on the cabaret circuit…
Unhurried and accomplished whodunit: ITV's Holding reviewed
A couple of years ago, I happened to read Graham Norton’s third novel Home Stretch. Rather patronisingly, perhaps, I was…
What’ll happen next – or what’s happened so far – is anybody’s guess: The Ipcress File reviewed
ITV’s new version of The Ipcress File began with a close-up of a pair of black-rimmed glasses just like those…
For all its absurdity, it delivers the goods: BBC2's Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America reviewed
In the latest episode of Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America, Louis asked a rapper called Broke Baby if ‘it’s important to…
The medical equivalent of The Responder: BBC1's This is Going to Hurt reviewed
According to the makers, This is Going to Hurt is intended as ‘a love letter to the national health service’.…
Shades of Tony Soprano: BBC1's The Responder reviewed
Older readers may remember a time when people signalled their cultural superiority with the weird boast that they didn’t watch…
A cut above TV's usual #MeToo fare: BBC1's Rules of the Game reviewed
As you may have noticed, it’s something of a golden age for TV shows about how invisible middle-aged women are…
Tells us more about today than the early 1960s: BBC1's A Very British Scandal reviewed
For people who like a good upper-class scandal (or ‘people’, as they’re also known), 1963 was definitely a vintage year.…
