What’s on TV tonight: Mandy, The Repair Shop, and more
Channel 4, 9pmSitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s (The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers…
Toast of Tinseltown, review: a deserved encore for the UK’s most ludicrous thesp
Some comebacks are perfectly timed. January is always rubbish, but January in a pandemic? Send help. What we need is a dose of comedy featuring absurd people…
Why Jodie Whittaker failed as Doctor Who
Better writing may have helped Whittaker become a Doctor to remember and defied the misogynists who circled around the news of her casting. But with Chibnall and…
The Orson Welles frozen peas tantrum that inspired Steven Toast
After an absence of several years, Matt Berry’s cult sitcom Toast of London has returned for an extremely welcome new series. Co-written, as before, with Father Ted…
What’s on TV tonight: Toast of Tinseltown, Digging for Britain, and more
Channel 4, 9pmSitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s (The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers…
Attenborough’s Wonder of Song, review: forget Taylor Swift, listen to the lyrebirds
It’s been a while since a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. To hear one in Britain these days, unless you’re very fortunate, you will need to go…
Four Lives, review: quite simply as good as true-crime TV drama gets
In a sea of police dramas, Four Lives (BBC One) stands out. That’s because the police are the villains, rather than the heroes. It is a true-life…
This is what a modern Around The World In 80 Days challenge would look like
A better bet might be to go from Russia to China, then pick up a freighter cruise. This is an established, albeit unusual, way of getting around…
How John Berger’s Ways of Seeing changed the way we look at art
According to Dibb, Berger considered his scripts merely a “beginning”, and wanted the series to be a “50:50 collaboration”. Much of its power derives from images and…
George Alagiah: I’m lucky for the life I’ve had, but cancer will probably get me in the end
George Alagiah has said he feels “lucky” for the life he has lived, while acknowledging that cancer will “probably get me in the end”. The BBC newsreader, 66,…
Father Brown, series 9, episode 1 review: the perfect post-Christmas pick-me-up
Criminal skulduggery and genteel English villages go together like Prince Andrew and sensibly-priced pizza chains. And it was back to that fantasy realm of redbrick boozers, apple-cheeked…
What’s on TV tonight: Four Lives, Father Brown, and more
Channel 4, 9pmSitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s (The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers…
‘Offensive’ Black and White Minstrel Show features in BBC commemoration
The controversial Black and White Minstrel show features in a new archive collated to commemorate the BBC’s centenary, as the corporation examines how such an “offensive” programme…
What’s on TV tonight: Anne, The Man Who Bought Cricket, and more
Channel 4, 9pmSitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s (The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers…
Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks, review: funny, scary, inventive and the best episode in years
New Year, New Who. Happily, Doctor Who (BBC One) began 2022 with a bang. A demolition blast and a spectacular pyrotechnic display, to be precise. Hour-long special…
The Tourist, review: Jamie Dornan’s mystery Down Under gives the BBC a New Year hit
Finally, a television thriller that doesn’t feel formulaic. OK, The Tourist (BBC One) is a police procedural of sorts. And it does involve a cast member from…
Selina Scott: ‘This is the last time I’ll be on TV’
On Monday, when I appear in BBC Four’s Winter Walks series, my 30-minute programme about a hike through the glorious Yorkshire Dales – a county I was…
What’s on TV tonight: The Tourist, Doctor Who, and more
Channel 4, 9pmSitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s (The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers…
How Joan Collins put the ‘nasty’ in Dynasty
The line between Joan Collins, sexually provocative film star, and Alexis Carrington, ball-breaking man-eater, was a fine one, and the actress was happy to blur it further,…
How Joan Collins put the ‘nasty’ in Dynasty
The line between Joan Collins, sexually provocative film star, and Alexis Carrington, ball-breaking man-eater, was a fine one, and the actress was happy to blur it further,…
What’s on TV tonight: New Year’s Eve Party, Cobra Kai, and more
Channel 4, 9pmSitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s (The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers…
The BBC needs New Year’s resolutions – here are six from me
But more and more of us can see that it is not. And the reason is that “impartiality” is an inhuman quality; it cuts against the grain…
Grow up, Worzel Gummidge prudes – a little innuendo is good for children
Worzel Gummidge fans have been getting their turnips in a twist over a new episode of the Mackenzie Crook reboot of the beloved children’s TV show. A special Christmas…
What’s on TV tonight: Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard, One Night in London Zoo, and more
Channel 4, 9pmSitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s (The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers…
Why we must keep making TV drama about real-life monsters
The problem is that perceptions of Savile are so weighed down by his public persona, his carefully wrought to-camera eccentricities, that it takes an actor of considerable…