Television
Was BBC1’s Rooney show more scripted reality than documentary?
Close to the Edge (BBC4, Tuesday) feels very much like an idea conceived during a particularly good night in the…
Was BBC1’s Rooney hagiography more scripted reality than documentary?
Close to the Edge (BBC4, Tuesday) feels very much like an idea conceived during a particularly good night in the…
James Delingpole discovers the fons et origo of indie music
I really hadn’t meant to write a postscript to last week’s column on my dark Supertramp past. But then along…
Independents’ day
I really hadn’t meant to write a postscript to last week’s column on my dark Supertramp past. But then along…
ITV’s Midwinter of the Spirit is a satisfying example of Middle-England Gothic
For years, Ian Fleming was famously self-deprecating about the James Bond books. (‘I have a rule of not looking back,’…
Talk of the devil
For years, Ian Fleming was famously self-deprecating about the James Bond books. (‘I have a rule of not looking back,’…
An Inspector Calls is poisonous, revisionist propaganda - which is why the luvvies love it
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
Socialist Cluedo
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
Guns, tools and toffee apples - but no nudity: BBC1’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover reviewed
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
Cock and bull
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
Finally James Delingpole gets why women are so angry
Finally I realise why women are so pissed off. It all goes back to the first codified laws — circa…
Lifting the veil
Finally I realise why women are so pissed off. It all goes back to the first codified laws — circa…
How many royal cliches can you fit into a single Channel 4 documentary?
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
Will he was
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
Why does TV assume everyone is so thick they have to have everything explained?
My favourite moment in The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2, Monday) was when the heroine played by Natalie Dormer was shown…
Poldark porn
My favourite moment in The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2, Monday) was when the heroine played by Natalie Dormer was shown…
Is medical screening bad for your health? Michael Mosley dons a pair of ‘dignity shorts’ to find out
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
Sick and tired
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
All that postwar anxiety about being vaporised by a nuclear bomb was a complete waste of emotion
When I was growing up in the 1970s, my three main fears were: being blown up by the IRA; being…
Nuclear overreaction
When I was growing up in the 1970s, my three main fears were: being blown up by the IRA; being…
Bohemian conformity can be just as suffocating as any other type: BBC1’s Life in Squares reviewed
On all those comic lists of the world’s shortest books (Great Italian War Heroes, My Hunt for the Real Killers,…
Affairs in squares
On all those comic lists of the world’s shortest books (Great Italian War Heroes, My Hunt for the Real Killers,…
Lucy Worsley reveals - yet again - that there’s more to the WI than jam and Jerusalem
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
Institutional feminism
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
Joanna Lumley is ‘thrilled’ by everything, even being spanked by a Mongolian shaman, in her new Trans-Siberian Adventure
For keen students of China, this week’s television provided yet more proof that Deng Xiaoping’s decision to open the country…