Television
Purest fantasy but you’ll love it: Tetris reviewed
Tetris is a righteously entertaining movie about the stampede to secure the rights from within the Soviet Union to what…
Boring is as good as this erotic drama gets: Netflix’s Obsession reviewed
It is, of course, traditional for film and TV reviewers to demonstrate their steely high-mindedness by claiming that anything describing…
One of the best things you’ll see on TV this year: Netflix’s War Sailor reviewed
War Sailor (Krigsseileren), a three-part drama on Netflix about the Norwegian merchant navy in the second world war, is one…
Felt like the product of a night in the pub: BBC1’s Great Expectations reviewed
By now a genuinely radical way to turn a Victorian novel into a TV drama would be to take that…
Succession works because the writers don’t care about the boring business storylines
I have a theory that many great artists’ strength is a product of their weakness. The flaw of the relentlessly…
Makes a change to see such reassuringly competent policemen: ITV1’s Grace reviewed
Sunday-night dramas on the two main terrestrial channels definitely aren’t what they used to be. Not so long ago, you…
What a gloriously easy living Chris Rock makes from his comedy
Chris Rock was paid $20 million for his 70-minute Netflix special, so by my reckoning his riff on whether or…
Watch some liars claim that youth and beauty don’t go together
Back in 1990, Grandpa from The Simpsons wrote a letter of protest to TV-makers. ‘I am disgusted with the way…
In defence of the fabrications of reality TV
My new favourite tennis player, just ahead of Novak Djokovic, is Nick Kyrgios. Up until recently I’d barely heard of…
Riveting and titillating: BBC2’s Parole reviewed
There’s a distinct and rather cunning whiff of cakeism about the new documentary series Parole. On the one hand, it…
What I love about Netflix’s Kleo is that it’s so damned German
I was almost tempted not to watch Kleo because it sounded like so many things I’d seen before: beautiful ex-Stasi…
Joking aside
Nick Hornby’s 2014 novel Funny Girl was both a heartfelt defence and a convincing example of what popular entertainment can…
Classy but constrained by its video game origins: Sky’s The Last of Us reviewed
The Last of Us is widely being hailed as the best video game adaptation ever. Maybe. But it’s still a…
A ‘look at these funny people’ doc that could have been presented by any TV hack: Grayson Perry’s Full English reviewed
For around a decade now, Grayson Perry has been making reliably thoughtful and entertaining documentary series about such things as…
Heist drama with a novelty spin that isn’t very novel: Netflix’s Kaleidoscope reviewed
Kaleidoscope is a fairly routine eight-part heist drama with a supposed novelty spin: apart from the beginning and the end,…
Guiltily compelling: Spector, on Sky Documentaries, reviewed
On 3 February 2003, the emergency services in Los Angeles received a call. ‘I’m Phil Spector’s driver,’ a voice told…
A Turkish dystopia that eludes western censors: Netflix’s Hot Skull reviewed
A strange new virus has infected half the world but the cure is worse than the disease: authoritarian tyranny, in…
Irresistible: Sky Max’s Christmas Carole reviewed
What’s wrong with sentimentality? The answer, I’d suggest, could either be: a) its almost bullying insistence on us having emotions…
Fascinating, plausible ideas undermined by Netflix: Ancient Apocalypse reviewed
Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse has been described by the Guardian as ‘the most dangerous show on Netflix’. What? More dangerous…
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…
Repellent: Paramount+’s Tulsa King reviewed
TV currently abounds with ‘I thought they were dead’ revival projects: series in which your favourite 1980s movie stars are…
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,…
Riveting: Netflix’s The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself reviewed
Gratingly edgy soundtrack, stomach-churning gore, torture, witchcraft, sadism and an indigestible title. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself sounds…
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…
A Soviet version of Martin Parr: Adam Curtis’s Russia 1985-1999 –TraumaZone reviewed
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
