Television
Television review: The Returned is the finest, purest heroin
With the possible exception of Game of Thrones, The Returned (Channel 4, Sunday) is the best series you will see on TV all year. I caught some early previews about… Read more
Sex! Soap! Starkey! The Tudor invasion of British television
The Tudors have invaded television. Everywhere you look, it’s Henry VIII this, Henry VII that, Anne Boleyn this, Anne of Cleves that. On BBC2 is the continuing drama series The… Read more
Why watching Britain’s Got Talent is like giving yourself a lobotomy
The kids are back for half-term so we’re having to watch absolute crap again on TV. Monday night, I wanted to watch The Fall (BBC1). But I couldn’t, obviously, because… Read more
'Bankers' was not a documentary. It was a BBC hit job
I like bankers. They’re an honest lot. All of us like money, but only they are upfront about it. I once witnessed a conversation between three financiers that started with… Read more
The Fall, Culture Show Special — Not Like Any Other Love: The Smiths
The serial killer on The Fall (BBC1, Monday) is no ordinary serial killer. He has a unique and terrifying modus operandi — or ‘signature’, as we serial-killer experts call it.… Read more
Will the internet save television?
Forget The Apprentice. A ‘reality TV’ show where you have no say, and where you can only watch as Sir Alan Sugar does all the hiring and firing? That is… Read more
TV: I would surely die if I watched more than five minutes of Ben Elton’s The Wright Way; Rupert Murdoch: Battle With Britain
The controversial counterintuitive piece I was going to write concerned Ben Elton’s new sitcom The Wright Way (BBC1, Tuesday). You may have noticed it has been panned by all the… Read more
Television: The United States of Television; The Politician's Husband
There are two American Dreams — the one that happens in real life and is experienced by people such as Barack Obama, and the one that happens on screens, both… Read more
Television: Margaret: Death of a Revolutionary
In Margaret: Death of a Revolutionary (Channel 4, Saturday) — Martin Durkin’s superb tribute to our greatest prime minister — there was some footage of Harold Macmillan giving his ‘selling… Read more
Lara Pulver interview: ‘People in LA were desperate to meet Irene Adler’
Not many actors have made a name for themselves with quite the same force as Lara Pulver. In January last year more than eight million people tuned in to BBC1… Read more
TV review: The Secrets of Britain’s Sharia Courts; The Sex Clinic
Sometimes a television programme raises far bigger questions than it actually gives a platform for, which is the case with Panorama’s The Secrets of Britain’s Sharia Courts (BBC1, Monday). Wedged… Read more
The Village
Everyone’s loving BBC1’s new, Sunday-night period mega-drama The Village (32 episodes long if writer Peter Moffat has his way). It’s taut, spare, grown-up, accomplished, dark, strange and poetic, according to… Read more
Dr Who: there’s something in the wi-fi; How to be a Lady; The Mystery of Mary Magdalene
It used to be that when an arch-villain wanted to decimate a community, he’d put something in the water. Now, it’s something in the wi-fi. In the new Dr Who,… Read more
The future of arts broadcasting
Under the stewardship of John Reith, the BBC was godlier than it is today. In fact, when Broadcasting House was first opened in central London, Director General Reith made sure… Read more
Lost in space
On 28 January 1986 the Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after launch, killing all seven crew. What made it worse was that one of the victims, Christa McAuliffe, was a… Read more
Mimics, pagans and pilgrims on TV
What would you do if you had a quite extraordinary talent in impersonating everyone, from Al Pacino to Barack Obama to just any random Irish bloke? In TV land, you… Read more
Bluestone 42: Dad's Army it isn't
The thing that always used to bother me about M*A*S*H as a child was the lack of combat. You’d see the realistic film of choppers at the beginning and, obviously,… Read more
ITV’s Food Glorious Food is under the curse of Simon Cowell
I sometimes worry that ITV — the middle child — doesn’t get enough of my attention and so this week I have decided to redress the balance: I devoted myself… Read more
New word order
‘Don’t be evil.’ Google’s unofficial motto. ‘Evil men don’t get up in the morning saying, “I’m going to do evil.” They say, “I’m going to make the world a better… Read more
Latest blogs
- Obama’s Berlin speech was a damp squib Freddy Gray
- PMQs sketch: In which Labour join the coalition Lloyd Evans
- Michael Gove kindly warns Stephen Twigg: people think you’re weak Isabel Hardman
- ‘Jihad!’ Douglas Murray
- The Tories are still flummoxed by social media Isabel Hardman
- The Supreme Court Mothballs the British Army Alex Massie
- Ed Miliband’s negative approach at PMQs looks set to become the norm James Forsyth
