Tv

Monday

David Blackburn

Silk vs The Good Wife

American TV drama trumps British TV drama – it’s a well-worn but unfair cliché. It’s not that British drama is necessarily bad – some of it is very good – it’s that American drama is often better. Compare and contrast Silk (BBC One) and The Good Wife (CBS/More4). Neither show is a blockbuster. Both are law/political office dramas: a staple of TV networks down the years, from the dog days of Judge John Deed all the way back to the glories of Rumpole. Viewers love the format of these wig and gown shows: a question is raised and resolved in every episode, while a wider, character-driven drama rumbles on for

Thursday

The Spectator

MH370 isn’t the only flight that’s still missing

Plane vanished Some other planes, besides Flight MH370, which have disappeared without trace: — A Boeing 727 cargo plane that was being prepared for a flight in Luana, Angola, on 25 May 2003. It took off without permission and when last seen was headed south-westwards over the Atlantic. — An Antonov An-72 cargo plane with a crew of five on a flight from Port Bouet, Côte d’Ivoire to Rundu Airport, Namibia, on 22 December 1997. — A de Havilland Twin Otter operated by Merpati Nusantara Airlines with four crew and ten passengers on an internal Indonesian flight from Birma to Satartacik on 10 January 1995. Baby bills Does Britain have

Mark Mason

First look at the BBC’s BBC mockumentary W1A

So, OK, here’s the thing with W1A: it’s just as brilliant as 2012. So that’s all good. By which I mean the two most memorable characters from the BBC’s Olympics mockumentary – Siobhan Sharpe and Ian Fletcher, whose catchphrases bookended the paragraph above – are back in the BBC’s BBC mockumentary. Last night’s first episode saw Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) appointed as the corporation’s new Head of Values, reunited (against his will) with brand expert Sharpe (Jessica Hynes). Their first crisis was who should present Britain’s Tastiest Village, after Clare Balding had to pull out due to filming commitments on ITV’s How Big Is Your Dog? John Morton, the writer of both series (I mean W1A and 2012, not Britain’s

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Six months as a TV critic, and I’ve seen enough corpses to last a lifetime

It was Shetland that tipped me over the edge. Not the place, but the TV series. Although that’s set in the place. So both, really. It’s a crime drama, see, and people keep getting murdered. Roughly speaking, so far, there’s been a corpse every episode. Which by the end of the series will mean eight corpses. Which, given that there are only 20,000 people in Shetland, means that Scotland’s most northerly islands have a murder rate roughly comparable with that of Belize. Or higher, even, because my calculations assume that a series happens in a year, and that we are seeing all the murders there are, rather than just the

Tuesday

Walter Ellis

The BBC’s march to war

Perhaps we are growing war-weary – weary, that is, of the gathering storm of World War One documentaries on the BBC. There have been so many, not just Max Hastings (for) and Niall Ferguson (against), but Jeremy Paxman keeping the home fires burning and the reheated I Was There interviews with veterans of the conflict whom age withered, unlike those who left their corpses to stink in the mud of Flanders. For all that, 37 Days, the corporation’s recent reconstruction of the events leading up to Germany’s invasion of Belgium, was utterly compelling, once again confirming the place of docudrama in the history schedule. Not only was it beautifully realised (Downton

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Is Nigel Farage wimping out on scary Nick Clegg’s debate challenge?

Who knew Nick Clegg was so scary? As James revealed this morning, the Lib Dem leader has challenged Nigel Farage, never knowingly silent, to a televised leaders’ debate for the European elections. But the Ukip response isn’t quite so enthusiastic. The party’s director of communications Patrick O’Flynn has said that ‘it would be ridiculous if Nick Clegg were to refuse to extend his invitation to David Cameron and Ed Miliband too’ and that ‘we also want to know from David Cameron and Ed Miliband that they are not running scared and will be happy to present their case on the EU to the British public as well. We can see

Thursday

James Delingpole

The Three Musketeers is a triumph – because, like Game of Thrones, no one is safe

‘Pshaw!’ That was my first reaction to news of the BBC’s new ten-part Sunday night adaptation of The Three Musketeers. After all, wasn’t it about a fortnight ago I was in the Gaumont in Redditch watching the classic 1973 movie version that had just come out with Michael York (and Oliver Reed and Roy Kinnear…)? And wasn’t it roughly the day before yesterday that I remember tut-tutting and refusing point-blank to go to see the 1993 Hollywood bratpack travesty with those upstarts Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland? This is what happens when you get old: time compresses; there’s nothing new under the sun; everything people younger than you do seems

Wednesday

Steerpike

Leaders debates are on: officially

Westminster Christmas party season is in full swing. Half the Cabinet dropped by the Sky News bash at the Intercontinental last night. Mick Hucknall was also there, which was odd. The big news of the evening came when the head of Sky News, Jon Riley, confirmed that all three party leaders have now officially agreed to TV debates at the next election. Details were sparse because there appears to be deadlock over formats, timings and even the number of debates. The debates are on, though. Officially. In some form. It was a busy old evening for political-ornithologists. Tim Yeo lurked in the corner, looking glum. Chris Bryant refused to ‘twerk’ with

Thursday

Robert Gorelangton

‘You can’t handle the truth!’ — the greatest courtroom dramas of all time

Our legal system is pure theatre and always has been. Many barristers stand accused of being failed actors and vice versa. Judges love the dressing-up box and a chance to give their gavel a good bang. With murmuring galleries, shocking verdicts, swooning witnesses, cries of ‘all rise’ and ‘take him down’, the flummery and drama of the courtroom has always supplied a rich genre for film, theatre and telly. Now there’s a chance to see one of the more serious courtroom classics in the West End. Twelve Angry Men — originally written for the screen and directed by Sidney Lumet — is about a grumpy New York jury deciding on

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband’s second conference message: ‘bring it on’

If you’re looking for two phrases to summarise this year’s Labour conference, they’d be ‘Britain can do better than this’ (in case you missed its fleeting reference in Ed Miliband’s speech) and ‘bring it on’. Ed Miliband has decided that even though he doesn’t poll above his party like Cameron, or have a history of impressing in broadcast and question-and-answer performances like Nick Clegg, he can still enter a presidential-style 2015 election without fear. Yesterday he told delegates that he would ‘relish’ a battle about character and leadership, today he told his conference during a question-and-answer session that he wanted TV election debates in 2015, saying: ‘It’s time for David

Saturday

Camilla Swift

Spectator Play: The highs and the lows of what’s going on in arts this week

The Tate Britain has recently undergone a ‘sorely needed’ rehang, which Andrew Lambirth explores in this week’s Spectator.  As a ‘welcome return to the great tradition of the chronological hang’ might have its detractors, but the BP Walk Through British Art is, overall, a fantastic display. Here’s the director of Tate Britain, Penelope Curtis (who was in charge of the reorganisation) talking about her highlights from the display. And here are Andrew Lambirth’s own highlights. Has sod you architecture finally ‘put on a lounge suit’ asks Stephen Bayley.  That, at least, was the dress code that Richard Rogers applied to the opening of his new retrospective, Inside Out, at the Royal

Thursday

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern: Socrates on TV election debates

Lord Hennessy has been arguing that, as a result of TV debates between party leaders prior to elections, ‘the plausible tart bit will play too powerfully in [parties’] choice of leader and therefore rule out the decent but non-tarty people.’ It is good to see the modern world finally catching up with Socrates on the question of rhetoric and persuasion. Socrates is in conversation with Gorgias, the famous teacher of rhetoric, about what he thinks he is teaching. The skill of persuasive speech, Gorgias replies, whose purpose is to produce conviction. But, Socrates asks, conviction about what? Right, or wrong? Right, obviously, says Gorgias, which the orator will be able

Monday

Ed West

Katie Hopkins – this is why we have political correctness

I’ve been reminded just why political correctness exists: Katie Hopkins of the Apprentice, the TV show that glorifies the entrepreneurial ideal and the psychopathic levels of self-confidence that accompany it. Hopkins is on a bit of a roll with her homespun wisdom. Late last week she criticised ‘lower class’ children’s names, saying: ‘I think you can tell a great deal from a name… I tend to think that children who have intelligent names tend to have fairly intelligent parents and they make much better playdates for my children.’ As well as also having a go at people with tattoos and fatties, she also quipped: ‘Ginger babies. Like a baby. Just so

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Which television chef would you most like to see throttled in a restaurant?

Which television chef would you most like to see throttled in a restaurant? I have to say, Nigella Lawson would be well down the list for me, as I’ve always rather liked her. It’s true that some of her recipes are a little precious, especially all that fairy cake stuff, but surely not to the point that one would wish to strangle her, or witness her being strangled? Gregg Wallace, perhaps? He’s the one from Masterchef who looks like a badly boiled egg which is permanently on the cusp of ejaculation. Obviously Gordon Ramsay — that’s a given, as they say — but I’d also like to make a case

Thursday

James Delingpole

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, the plotline would quite often include casualties coming in from recent scenes of action. But the exciting stuff always seemed to happen offstage, a bit like in Shakespeare where some character strides on and tells you what a terrible battle there’s just been and you’re going, ‘Wait a second. Did we just skip past the most exciting bit?’ This clearly isn’t going to be a problem, though, with BBC3’s new sitcom about a bomb disposal unit in Afghanistan, Bluestone 42

Thursday

James Forsyth

The danger of the This Morning ‘paedophile list’

The Prime Minister goes on a mid-morning talk show and is forced to respond to a list of alleged paedophiles that the presenter has taken off the internet. If you put this in a political satire, it would be dismissed as far-fetched. But that is what happened when David Cameron went on This Morning. No-one is disputing the seriousness of the allegations involved. But does anyone really believe that the best way to uncover the truth is for the Prime Minister to be handed a list of names that a TV presenter has taken off the internet? Another concern about the coverage of this scandal is the terms that are

Friday

Tim Wigmore

Vice-President Biden closes the enthusiasm gap

The conventional wisdom dictates that debates between VP candidates are nights that should only interest political anoraks. But the last eight days have not been good for conventional wisdom: remember how boring Mitt Romney was meant to have no chance against a man of Barack Obama’s élan? Far more than any recent presidential debate, last night’s vice-presidential one was genuinely absorbing, pitting two contrasting, combative and forthright politicians against each other. They were helped by the performance of the moderator, Martha Raddatz. She was far more willing to engage the candidates than Jim Lehrer last week, providing the best possible opportunity for a stimulating debate. And that is certainly what

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Boris is right, but will anyone listen?

The tensions that have been bubbling away in the London mayoral contest spilt out into the open today with Boris Johnson accusing Ken Livingstone of lying about both of their tax affairs. On the facts of the matter, it looks pretty clear that Boris is right: he doesn’t use a company to reduce his tax liability. There are, though, those claiming that accusing Livingstone of being an ‘f***ing liar’ will hurt Boris. But I doubt this; it is hard to imagine Boris as an angry or mean-spirited person. What this exchange does do, though, is raise the stakes for their televised hustings tomorrow night. I expect that Livingstone will try and

Saturday

Jonathan Jones

Yes he Cain?

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Have you ever heard of Herman Cain? Neither have most Americans. The latest Gallup polling shows that only 21 per cent of Republicans even recognise his name, despite the fact that he would like to be their candidate for the Presidency. Yet that could all be about to change for the man who used to run Godfather’s Pizza, thanks to an acclaimed performance in the first debate of the primary season on Thursday night. Big names like Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump have yet to declare their candidacy, and so did not take part, while Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich (who have

Thursday

David Blackburn

Will there be TV debates at the next election?

One might have thought that the TV debates would become an immovable fixture in British general elections. But apparently not. Speaking at the launch of a new study of the 2010 election a couple of nights ago, Adam Boulton said that it was far from certain that they will feature at the next election. Will Straw tweeted the news at the time, but it seems to have slipped through the cracks as attention has been diverted elsewhere. Apparently, broadcasters and the parties have reached an impasse at this early stage in the electoral cycle. The Conservatives are reluctant to recommit themselves to something that they believe contributed to their failure