Television
Lucky the director of Little Drummer Girl is an ‘auteur’ or you might call the first episode corny
The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1, Sunday) is the new John le Carré adaptation from the production company that brought us…
How did mild-mannered eye doctor Bashar al-Assad end up a mass murderer?
‘How did this mild-mannered eye doctor end up killing hundreds of thousands of people?’ someone wondered about Bashar al-Assad in…
An enjoyably gossipy whisk through half a century of fierce rivalries and bruised egos
At the beginning of Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC4), Kirsty Wark’s voiceover promised…
The new Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker is a delight – but the script isn’t
You won’t be aware of this because the BBC has been keeping it very quiet. But the new Doctor Who…
Impeccably – and intriguingly – unclear: BBC1’s The Cry reviewed
It’s a radical thought I know, but I sometimes wonder what it would be like if a new TV thriller…
Forget the BBC – only Channel 5 does proper documentaries these days
What a load of utter tripe Bodyguard (BBC1, Sundays) was. Admittedly, I came to it late having missed all the…
Camp, preposterous and weirdly good fun: Killing Eve reviewed
After the all-conquering success of Fleabag — her brilliant dark comedy about a smart but rudderless young woman in London…
Gloriously macho: Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan reviewed
This week’s guilty pleasure is Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime). It’s trash, of course, but very well done, high-octane,…
Bad news for fans of good TV drama – there’s three more corkers to keep up with
This week was bad news for fans of good television drama series — mainly because there’s now three more of…
All the good non-fiction that was ever on TV was made by middle-aged men
All the good non-fiction things that were ever on TV — from Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation to David Attenborough’s Planet Earth…
I had no idea how fascinating rubbish could be: The Secret Life of Landfill reviewed
Not the most beguiling of titles, I admit, but The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (BBC4, Thursday) was…
Holidays in Hell – Such A Pleasant Getaway from the BBC
Apparently there’s a new ‘character’ on University Challenge. I wouldn’t know. Last year, I vowed never again to raise my…
Full of bog-standard, if annoyingly effective, emotional manipulation: The Foreign Doctors Are Coming reviewed
Surprising I know, but judging from The Foreign Doctors Are Coming (Channel 4, Tuesday), Britain mightn’t be such a bad…
Did Ed Balls mean to make a documentary on the joys of Trump’s America?
The thing I most regret having failed ever to ask brave, haunted, wise Sean O’Callaghan when I last saw him…
A proper old-fashioned stinker: ITV’s The Bletchley Circle – San Francisco reviewed
After just one episode, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (ITV, Wednesday) seems certain to stand out from the crowd. In…
Channel 4 doesn’t do ‘news’ in any meaningful sense of the word – it’s pure propaganda
When President Trump refused to take a question from a CNN reporter at the Chequers press conference last week, I…
The great thing about the World Cup is you don’t even have to watch it to enjoy it
Even though I don’t watch much football I love the World Cup because it’s my passport to total freedom. I…
Fury and excitement – how the journalists at the New York Times have coped with Trump
Back when his country was controlled by the USSR, the Czech writer Milan Kundera pointed out that ‘Union of Soviet…
More gripping than any scripted thriller: November 13 – Attack on Paris reviewed
There were 1,500 punters in the audience when Eagles of Death Metal played their fatal gig at the Bataclan theatre…
Exhilaratingly original, C4’s Flowers is much more than just a ‘dark comedy’
On Wednesday, BBC Four made an unexpectedly strong case that the human body is a bit rubbish. Our ill-designed spines,…
Why is this Israeli drama such a hit with Palestinians? Because it tells the truth
‘The rule in our household is: if a TV series hasn’t got subtitles, it’s not worth watching,’ a friend told…
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…
Magisterial: BBC1’s A Very English Scandal reviewed
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little, so you can imagine how sickened I was by the magisterial…
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…
Which now unbearable TV show has been ruined for ever by political correctness?
Twenty years after it first appeared, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is back for a brief, week-long anniversary run…
