Spectator Competition: All grown up
For Competition 3410 you were invited to imagine a celebrated character from a children’s book in later life. There were…
The power of BBC’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North
It’s been a good week for fans of TV dramas that are set partly in Syria, feature poetry-lovers confronting extreme…
How to holiday White Lotus-style: Billionaire Playground reviewed
Today’s television is notably fond of presenting us with very rich people to both despise and wish we lived like.…
None of Mitfords sound posh enough: Outrageous reviewed
There aren’t many dramas featuring the rise of the Nazis that could be described as jaunty, but Outrageous is one.…
Channel 4’s Beth is a sad glimpse into the future of terrestrial TV
On the face of it, Beth seemed that most old-fashioned of TV genres: the single play. In fact, Monday’s programme…
Why is the BBC making stuff up about Jane Austen?
Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius began by saying that ‘getting into her mind isn’t easy’ – something you’d never…
Tantalisingly ambiguous – or just plain baffling: Hallow Road reviewed
An 80-minute film which for almost all of the time features two people in a car mightn’t sound particularly ambitious.…
How come the only Palestinians Louis Theroux met were non-violent sweeties?
Louis Theroux: The Settlers was never likely to be a programme with much of a narrative arc – and so…
Good lawyers make for bad TV
Given that TV cameras aren’t allowed to film British criminal trials, Channel 4’s new documentary series Barristers: Fighting for Justice…
How fun is it being part of an Amazonian tribe?
Tribe with Bruce Parry ran for three fondly remembered series in the mid-2000s. Now, upgraded to Tribe with Bruce Parry,…
Netflix’s Adolescence is seriously flawed
Bradley Walsh: Egypt’s Cosmic Code may sound like a pitch by Alan Partridge – but, impressively, the programme itself manages…
Anjelica Huston is comprehensively upstaged in the BBC’s new Agatha Christie
Coincidentally, two of this week’s big new dramas began with a fourth wall-busting declaration of their narrative methods. At the…
The White Lotus is off to a shaky start
The White Lotus, now back for a third series, could perhaps be best described as Death in Paradise for posh…
Stately, sly and well-mannered: BBC1’s Miss Austen reviewed
It is a truth universally acknowledged that lazy journalists begin every piece about Jane Austen with the words ‘It is…
Certainly intriguing: Apple TV+’s Prime Target reviewed
Needless to say, there have been any number of thrillers that rely on what Alfred Hitchcock called a MacGuffin: something,…
Leavisites should stay away: Sky’s Bad Tidings reviewed
Reviewing Sky’s The Heist before Christmas last year, I suggested that all feature-length festive television dramas begin with credits announcing…
We’re wrong to mock Do They Know It’s Christmas?
‘I hope we passed the audition,’ said an alarmingly youthful Bob Geldof at one point in The Making of Do…
Too cautious and wildly over the top at the same time: Paddington in Peru reviewed
Toy Story or The Godfather? Which way would Paddington in Peru go? Would the third instalment of a much-cherished series…
A bit of a mess: Channel 4’s Generation Z reviewed
In the second of this week’s two episodes of Generation Z (Sunday and Monday), a teenage girl called Finn wondered…
A hit – but please don’t pretend it’s feminist: Disney+’s Rivals reviewed
For most of my adult life, clever, well-read, feminist women have told me how much they love Jilly Cooper. It…
Have today’s TV dramatists completely given up on plausibility?
In advance, Ludwig sounded as if it was aimed squarely at the Inspector Morse market. Set among spires of impeccable…
More Airplane! than Speed: Nightsleeper reviewed
Earlier this year, ITV brought us Red Eye, a six-part drama set mainly on an overnight plane from London to…
An accidental spy: Gabriel’s Moon, by William Boyd, reviewed
Having chanced to interview the Congolese politician Patrice Lumumba shortly before his assassination, a travel writer finds himself targeted by British Intelligence
