Drama
Patronising, clichéd and corny: BBC1’s Gold Digger reviewed
Some last taboos, it seems, can remain last taboos no matter how frequently they’re confronted. Grief, the menopause, masturbation, mental…
Promising but, compared to the first series, short of laughs: Fleabag reviewed
BBC2’s MotherFatherSon announced its status as a classy thriller in the traditional way: by ensuring that for quite a long…
Enjoyably contrived: BBC1’s Baptiste reviewed
What’s the best way to start a six-part thriller? The answer, it seems, is to have a bloke of a…
Could it be that Jimmy McGovern was getting into the festive spirit? No... Care reviewed
Jimmy McGovern’s one-off drama Care (BBC1, Sunday 9 December) began with a loving grandmother called Mary having a lovely time…
When the first world war ended, many soldiers were left with ‘a terrible empty feeling’
‘It was so unreal,’ said one of the first world war veterans about the long-awaited Armistice. It was the most…
Lucky the director of Little Drummer Girl is an ‘auteur’ or you might call the first episode corny
The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1, Sunday) is the new John le Carré adaptation from the production company that brought us…
An enjoyably gossipy whisk through half a century of fierce rivalries and bruised egos
At the beginning of Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC4), Kirsty Wark’s voiceover promised…
Spaces for everyone: the school theatres open to the public
Camilla Swift finds more top schools opening their theatres and galleries to the public
Po-faced but worth sticking with: Picnic at Hanging Rock reviewed
According to the opening captions in Picnic at Hanging Rock (BBC2, Wednesday), ‘the infamous events’ it depicts ‘began whena mysterious…
Grim and glorious: Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain reviewed
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Stay too long in the Lee Miller exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield and the metronome might…
An interesting – but unrealisable – interpretation: Royal Opera's Don Giovanni reviewed
When Kasper Holten’s production of Don Giovanni was first staged at the Royal Opera in 2014, I disliked it intensely,…
Exhilaratingly original, C4’s Flowers is much more than just a ‘dark comedy’
On Wednesday, BBC Four made an unexpectedly strong case that the human body is a bit rubbish. Our ill-designed spines,…
Why is this Israeli drama such a hit with Palestinians? Because it tells the truth
‘The rule in our household is: if a TV series hasn’t got subtitles, it’s not worth watching,’ a friend told…
Understated and heartbreaking: BBC2’s King Lear reviewed
I recently came across a theory of the American poet Delmore Schwartz’s that Hamlet only makes sense if you assume…
Why the arts are needed to put the ‘A’ into ‘STEAM’
Amongst the good places to be in Britain, the National Theatre and the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon are up there. What…
Sun readers will be disappointed – E.M. Phwoar-ster it is not: Howards End reviewed
Any readers of the Sun who excitedly tuned in to Howards End on Sunday night with their pause button at…
Welsh noir: How Port Talbot became the drama capital of Wales
Why, as well as steel, does the Welsh town produce great actors? Jasper Rees reports
Funny, sympathetic Netflix series on autism won’t please the righteous
Most new Netflix series are greeted not merely with acclaim, but with a level of gratitude that the returning Christ…
A drama that really does show how much better Britain is today compared to 50 years ago
As you may have spotted, the BBC is marking the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of male homosexuality with an…
BBC1’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems deliberately designed to flush out purists
Spoiler alerts aren’t normally required for reviews of Shakespeare — but perhaps I’d better issue one before saying that in…
Even the sternest Leavisite critic would find it hard to resist BBC2's Peaky Blinders
The big returning show of the week began with servants laying out the silverware at a large country house in…
The integrity and chain-smoking of these East German Commies is rather attractive
No one remembers this now but there really was a period, not so long ago, when the Eighties were universally…
Shakespeare at his freest and most exuberant: The Wars of the Roses reviewed
The RSC’s The Wars of the Roses solves a peculiar literary problem. Shakespeare’s earliest history plays are entitled Henry VI…
The Last Kingdom is BBC2’s solemnly cheesy answer to Game of Thrones
The opening caption for The Last Kingdom (BBC2, Thursday) read ‘Kingdom of Northumbria, North of England, 866 AD’. In fact,…
An Inspector Calls is poisonous, revisionist propaganda - which is why the luvvies love it
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
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