crime drama
Schoenberg owes his survival to crime drama
George Gershwin once made a home movie of Arnold Schoenberg grinning in a suit on his tennis court in Beverly…
Am I slightly psychopathic to be so obsessed with gangster TV?
Most of my favourite TV shows seem to involve gangsters in one way or another: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Top…
Epic, immersive and tiresomely long: Killers of the Flower Moon reviewed
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is a Western crime drama that runs to three-and-a-half hours. (Sit on that,…
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…
Should we be playing the surveillance state for laughs? Celebrity Hunted reviewed
One of the many great things about The Capture was that we could never be sure whether the British authorities’…
I have no clue what’s going on, but can’t wait to find out: BBC1’s The Capture reviewed
How did the police ever solve any crimes before CCTV? That was the question which sprang to mind watching the…
The reason Gomorrah is one of the best series ever shown on TV is its fidelity to truth
My favourite epithet about my favourite TV series was the headline in a review by the Irish Times: ‘Gomorrah. Where…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
The mob is right about Line of Duty – it remains unmissably exciting
On Sunday a drama began with ED905 being stolen by an OCG who’d faked an RTC that required IR, little…
Law & Order, made – and banned – in 1978, puts most recent crime series in the shade
It’s not every day that a television screenwriter is threatened with a trial for sedition, but G.F. Newman was after…
What’s the point of Philomena Cunk?
Because I’m a miserable old reactionary determined to see a sinister Guardianista plot in every BBC programme I watch, I…
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…
The death of cosy Christie
This is not Midsomer Murders. The new film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is thick with…
When in Rome…
I know I keep saying that in Decline of the West terms we’re all currently living in Rome, circa 400…
Second thoughts
I had planned to review David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s new Channel 4 sitcom Back without constantly referring to their…
BBC1’s Remember Me: the curious case of the killer Yorkshire taps
BBC1’s authentically spooky three-part ghost story Remember Me hasn’t yet revealed what’s really going on in that gloomy Yorkshire town.…
