Television
The Co-op Bank isn't worthy of its name
We’ve heard a lot this week about infrastructure spending, and how much more will be needed if the UK is…
Sets appeal: the distracting beauty of TV backdrops
The distracting beauty of TV backdrops
In defence of Emily in Paris
A frothy new drama called Emily in Paris arrived on Netflix last month. Starring Lily Collins — daughter of Phil…
Spare us David Hare
Having not watched television for nine months and already growing bored of the 1,000-piece jigsaw of General Alfredo Stroessner (part…
The end of the line for the rail franchise fiasco
Good riddance to the passenger rail franchise system which has finally been killed off by Covid, though a majority of…
The bluff and bluster of Boris’s bland boy Brexiteers
From the balcony where I take my daily exercise there is a view of the commercial centre of London that…
Movie-makers should look to the Athenians before cashing in on this crisis
Covid-19 has not yet reached its peak but already the moguls of the small screen are plotting how to monetise,…
How I fell out of love with the BBC
One of the many technological things I don’t understand is, how come I’m paying to watch television? I know why…
Why the BBC licence fee makes sense
A consensus seems to be forming that the BBC licence fee is for the chop. In a digital age, the…
Joan Collins: I’m an actress, not an actor. And yes, it matters
I recently tried to put my profession down as ‘actress’ on Instagram, but the only option available from the drop-down…
This year’s top gadgets – according to my inner chimp
I’d hoped to spend this week writing about my new Geberit Japanese-style toilet, but since the grout is not yet…
No one else has the weird levels of self-regard shown by people who appear regularly on TV
One of the more tedious tropes of recent years is for journalists to bemoan the rise of populism while busily…
With these documentaries, the BBC has lost any claim to impartiality
Because the rise of the Nazis is a topic so rarely mentioned these days, least of all in schools, the…
How to be a man
Gstaad I was reading in these here pages Julie Burchill’s review of Candace Bushnell’s Is There Still Sex in…
Why are there so few Polish people on British TV?
Have you ever seen a Pole on British television? Poles are the biggest immigrant group in Britain, numbering between 900,000…
Letters: Stop and search is messy, confrontational and absolutely necessary
Support for stop and search Sir: Mary Wakefield is rightly exasperated by fatuous comments over police use of stop and…
What I’ve learned from 20 years without a TV
In the summer of 1999 I did something radical. Spurred on by my husband’s universal loathing of television I took…
Roman entertainment was far more exploitative than Jeremy Kyle
The Romans were as aware as Jeremy Kyle was of the pleasure that people could get from situations in which…
The problem with TV? There’s too much to watch – and it’s all too good
Friends in Herefordshire said they were both fit and well but confessed to ‘watching far too much television’. I thought…
There’s little difference between Question Time and Britain’s Got Talent
The contestants for the 13th series of Britain’s Got Talent, the variety show which starts on Saturday, certainly showed variety:…
![The Little Drummer Girl [Photo: BBC]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/12/16729426_low_res_the_little_drummer_girl_1.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
John le Carré is like Shakespeare – his plots are improbable beyond comprehension
Thank the blessed Lord it’s over. Not Brexit, or Theresa May’s flailing and spastic governance. I’m talking about John le…
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…
Why is a BBC executive calling for the removal of middle-aged white men from television?
Cassian Harrison, the editor of BBC Four, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that no one wants to…
Paranoia and The Woman in White
I sat up with a jerk, after contemplating the wallpaper in the television dramatisation of The Woman in White, when…
Toby Young: I’ve been unmanned by a tennis brute in bright pink
As regular readers will know, Caroline has developed a fanatical interest in tennis and is currently captain of the ladies…
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