Women in Black
Simple and fascinating cultural literacy doc. What’s it like for the women in a middle class Yemeni home? Clothes, hair, shopping, going out, getting high: it’s all here. British-Yemeni woman Amani Zain takes a camera crew back her family’s home in Aden and introduces us to the complicated habits and passions of the Muslim Arab [...]
The Age of Terror: The Paris Plot
Did you know this? Did you know that Algerian Islamists planned and set out on a 9/11-style attack on Paris in 1994? Did you know that the plane actually made it into French aerospace and onto French soil? Did you know that the terrorists shot and killed three passengers and were subsequently killed themselves when [...]
Made in England by Seth Lakeman
Entirely satisfactory clash-of-cultures music doc from Devon folkie Seth Lakeman and Brummie hip-hop crew Moorish Delta 7 (MD7). Creativity and curiosity on both sides make for a thoroughly convincing ‘mash-up’ (I think that’s what the young people call this sort of thing). Heartwarming.
(Sorry, only two days to go on this one. Thought it was worth [...]
Clowns
This is marvelous.
I’m Tommy Tickle. I bought this round off a guy called Timmy Tickle. He moved to Essex to become Silly Billy Blue-Hat.
In addition to Tommy, we also meet Potty the Pirate and Mr Pumpkin. All have everyday worries and real lives.
The fact that Tommy Tickle wears a cricket box to protect his genitals [...]
Wonderland - The Curious World of Frinton-on-Sea
This is surreal documentary. As sad as it is strange.
Frinton is clearly an unusual place. It didn’t get a pub until the year 2000, though the documentary focuses on the more recent struggle against the modernisation of the railway crossing. The real treasure here lies in the more eccentric (sometimes lovable, sometimes worrying) characters [...]
Storyville: All White in Barking
I think this is the second programme from BBC2’s ‘White‘ series we’ve featured here. This one, from the venerable Storyville strand, has quite a lot in common with Henry Singer’s Last Orders from last week: lingering, uncomfortable head-shots, difficult questions posed from behind the camera and a refusal to gloss over awkward opinions. It’s a [...]
Last Orders
I was struggling to know what to say about this. Then I saw that David Hepworth had said it all for me. Have a look at Mr Hepworth’s words, and have a look at the programme. Only telly could do this.
Masterpieces of Vienna
Thirty minutes of television about a sofa: and it’s a repeat, too.
Masterpieces of Vienna is an arts documentary series of the old school. Don’t expect expensive looking camerawork, CGI reconstructions or Andrew Graham-Dixon buzzing around in a mini; you’ll be getting some nice solid rostrum work, talking heads, a smattering of archive footage and a [...]
The Cult of The Onedin Line
Its hard to believe they are the same man; those two images of the late Peter Gilmore as either the cheeky young hospital portal eying up Nurse Barbara Windsor in the Carry On Films but also as Captain James Onedin SHOUTING his way through the seventies. THAT theme tune (Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian) was [...]
Portillo on Thatcher: The Lady’s Not for Spurning
Or how we all learned to love Portillo. Gradually he’s become the Brian Walden of his day. Shining on the Moral Maze, on the underrated This Week and making documentaries on seemingly anything he fancies. He was also the best thing in last years celebrity trial drama-doc; The Verdict keeping Archer in check.
And finally [...]
