Never Anyone But You, by Rupert Thomson reviewed
In a 2013 interview with a Canadian newspaper, Rupert Thomson acknowledged the strange place he occupies in the literary world.…
Understated and heartbreaking: BBC2’s King Lear reviewed
I recently came across a theory of the American poet Delmore Schwartz’s that Hamlet only makes sense if you assume…
Sky Atlantic’s Patrick Melrose adaptation is triumphant
Warning: if you haven’t seen it yet, the first episode of the much-anticipated Patrick Melrose (Sky Atlantic, Sunday) contains scenes…
Zen tales and flights of fancy: Patient X reviewed
The target audience for David Peace’s new novel appears almost defiantly niche. Certainly, any readers in the embarrassing position of…
From now on you can assume that every TV-drama cast is female-led
From time to time, a TV show comes along which is so thrillingly original, so wildly imaginative, that you can’t…
Jaw-dropping: My Year with the Tribe reviewed
For a while now, the Korowai people of Western Papua have been the go-to primitive tribe for documentary-makers. The Korowai…
Portentous, po-faced but also highly imaginative: The City & The City reviewed
BBC2 has a new drama series for Friday nights. The main character is a world-weary middle-aged police inspector with an…
Shamelessly undemanding: ITV’s The Durrells reviewed
For as long as I can remember, Sunday nights have been the home of the kind of TV drama cunningly…
Intriguing but also baffling: The Assassination of Gianni Versace reviewed
By common consent, including Bafta’s, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was one of the best TV dramas…
Troy managed to descend into cliché even when nobody was actually using any words
ITV’s Marcella (Monday) represents another triumphant breakthrough in the portrayal of female cops on television. Of course, thanks to more…
Channel 4 marked women’s suffrage with an episode of the Secret Life of Five-Year-Olds
To mark the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage — if a little oddly — Channel 4 on Tuesday brought us…
Ainsley Harriott is still unaccountably amused by almost everything: Costa Del Celebrity reviewed
These days, when it comes to people who used to be on the telly, the answer to the classic newspaper…
Channel 4’s Kiri is already shaping up to be one of the TV highlights of the winter
These days a genuinely controversial TV drama series would surely be one with an all-white, male-led cast that examined the…
Did a vodka ban precipitate the Russian Revolution?
It’s one of the more mysterious features of human history that people of every era and in almost every place…
Lovely to look at but irritatingly pious: The Miniaturist reviewed
BBC1’s The Miniaturist (26/7 December) is a lavish two-part adaptation of Jessie Burton’s bestseller. It’s also further proof that almost…
A non-sniggering look at the latest developments in the lucrative sex-robot market
This week on Channel 4, we watched a cheery 58-year-old American engineer called James going on a first date. He…
Sun readers will be disappointed – E.M. Phwoar-ster it is not: Howards End reviewed
Any readers of the Sun who excitedly tuned in to Howards End on Sunday night with their pause button at…
It’s hard to preserve the primacy of head over heart while watching this doc about refugees
Anybody who wants to maintain a strong and untroubled stance against mass migration to Europe should probably avoid BBC2’s Exodus:…
Amazing Grace
In the first scene of this distinctly odd documentary, Grace Jones meets a group of fans, who squeal with delight…
Saints and sinners
Any rival reality-TV makers watching Channel 5 on Thursday will, I suspect, have been both mystified and slightly embarrassed at…
Gleaming pictures of the past
If you think you know what to expect from an Alan Hollinghurst novel, then when it comes to The Sparsholt…
Mourning glory
On the face of it, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds aren’t exactly a natural fit with the O2. Cave’s…
Playing it safe
BBC1’s latest Sunday-night drama The Last Post, about a British military base in Aden in 1965, feels like a programme…
Loose ends
On Sunday night, Holliday Grainger was on two terrestrial channels at the same time playing a possibly smitten sidekick of…
Second thoughts
I had planned to review David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s new Channel 4 sitcom Back without constantly referring to their…
