Television
Eco-loons on the march
Only this morning I got an email from an evidently very bright 17-year-old at a certain nameless public school. ‘I’m…
Our island story
Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, on a radio programme that tells the history of the monarchy through 50 objects in the Royal Collection
Welsh, single and sex mad
There’s lots of comedy about, but it’s not what Americans call ‘water-cooler’ comedy, shows that get people talking at work…
Cooked-up tension
Masterchef (BBC1) is a total waste of life — and I should know, because I’m addicted to it. It came…
Alien world
My grandfather served in the trenches, but he declined to talk about it. I suppose the horrors had been insupportable.…
Adult viewing
How in God’s name did Jonathan Meades ever get a job presenting TV programmes? I ask in the spirit of…
Dickens on screen…
Nobody is going to be excused Dickens in his bicentennial year. This is good news for television people, since Dickens…
Sleuth at work
One of my resolutions this year is to make a lot more money. But how? In fact, I’ve noticed recently,…
Watching brief
The most watched programme on television this past year was the royal wedding, which is hardly surprising, since we had…
Disappearing lords
‘I don’t like him looking daft,’ growls Alastair Campbell to the camera as Bafta-winning documentary film-maker Molly Dineen shadows Tony…
Victory to the vicar
My prize for the best thing on TV this year goes to the comedy Rev (BBC2, Thursdays). I know Simon…
Sage advice
To the Manor Reborn (BBC1, Thursday) is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant programmes in the history of television. But…
Out of kilter
Can a critic simply be wrong, in the way that a mathematician who said that 3×3=10 would be wrong? I’m…
A girdle too far
Fact: in 1963, air travel was so new and exciting that the awed gasps of the passengers as the plane…
Ritual humiliation
Ricky Gervais’s latest sitcom, Life’s Too Short (BBC2, Thursday), is really a series of sketches on his favourite themes —…
Padding out
One of the useful things about having teen and near-teenage kids is discovering what the vulgar masses watch. Last week,…
Et tu, Hugh?
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall thinks it’s time we all went veggie (River Cottage Veg; Channel 4, Sunday). Coming from a man whose…
Critics’ choice
I caught an intriguing session at the Cheltenham literary festival, titled ‘Secrets of the TV Critics’. As it happened, the…
Care in the community
‘We all need to rendezvous every week. It keeps us all as a community,’ said Jane Copsey on the In…
Nice Mr Fry
Whenever I find myself dreaming about how awful things would be under a red/green dictatorship — increasingly often, these days — the one person who gives me a glimmer of hope that I might get out of the hell alive is Stephen Fry.
Tale of the unexpected
I imagine there is software that helps you write biopics for television. First you pick the childhood from a drop-down…
How to behave
‘I don’t suppose the war will leave any of us alone by the time it’s done,’ prophesied one of the…
Out of sight
There are some things television can do which no other medium can manage. Take one of those little-noticed programmes, Hidden…
Rebellious Prommers
The Promenaders have excelled themselves this year. I thought initially they were slightly more docile and slightly less dotty than…
Money for nothing
When future historians sift through the wreckage of Western Civilisation to try to find out where it all went wrong, I do hope they chance upon at least one episode of The World’s Strictest Parents (BBC3) and one of Deal or No Deal (Channel 4).
