All New Shooting Stars
The once yawning gap between the peerless silliness of Reeves and Mortimer and their obvious antecedents Morecambe and Wise is closing fast: the first episode of Shooting Stars went out fifteen years ago, which is nearly half as long ago as the 28-million viewer everest of the 1977 Christmas Show (if you get a move [...]
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe
Brooker takes a week off from putting the boot into TV inanity to interview five top TV writers—the writers of shows like Doctor Who, Shameless, Hustle, The IT Crowd and Peep Show—about writing. How they got into it, how they get going in the morning, how they come up with characters and names and so [...]
Shopping for England
What a lovely, fascinating, useful programme. Proper scholarship (from Mica Nava, a clever historian who was once, in the distant past, my boss for a short while), great stories and really interesting and relevant insights into the translation of Britain from 19th Century manufacturing powerhouse into 20th Century shopaholic paradise.
The two big names featured were [...]
The Fallen
I’ve been thinking about this programme for a few days. I watched it with my wife and it left us literally speechless. I wasn’t at all sure I should put it up here, though, mostly because I didn’t think I’d be able to come up with anything to say about it. But really I think [...]
Arena – The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Phil Spector
We’d be unhappy if pop culture didn’t regularly throw up Shakespearian figures like Phil Spector, flawed and brilliant (and in Spector’s case downright dangerous). Imagine if they were all like Cliff. This really lovely Arena takes the form of an extended interview conducted by director Vikram Jayanti (the BBC’s press release says that Jayanti’s “hallmark [...]
Vladimir Ashkenazy: The Vital Juices are Russian
No question about it: the best programme classified ‘music’ on iPlayer at the moment: a lovely 1968 documentary about pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy. The young Ashkenazy’s evidently not your stereotypical classical soloist: not wild-eyed, tempestuous or mercurial and not an egomaniac, despite his international fame. He’s modest, curious, humane, passionate. The kind of person you’d like [...]
Panorama: Obama and the Pitbull: An American Tale
This is really remarkable TV. Self-confident, imaginative, visually fascinating. An example of what you get when you apply the BBC’s stock of extraordinary talent and insight (and all those connections) to a really important story. Matt Frei, the BBC’s top man in the USA, presents a useful survey of the strangeness and drama of the [...]
London to Brighton Side by Side
If there was a channel that showed only speeded-up movies filmed from the cab of a train I would watch it. Here are two films from thirty years apart (1953 and 1983), screened side-by-side, and both shot from the cab of a London-Brighton train. Mesmerising.
Our World: Return to Dora
Here’s another programme that’s not about the credit crunch. Also a pretty good reminder that there are still plenty of people in the world who have better things to do than worry about the crash and its consequences. There’s something special about this BBC News Channel feature: something really haunting about the vivid street level [...]
Never mind the global systemic catastrophe
Look, I probably ought to put up something about Credit Default Swaps or LIBOR or something but, honestly, I just can’t. So—by way of light relief—here’s this week’s Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Laugh? You’ll probably find yourself unwinding your long-term leverage or increasing your tier 1 capital. Sarcastic grammar school charmer Simon Amstell is outstanding: [...]
