TV

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Brian Donaldson finds a bunch of shows with famili

27 Mar 2007

Instead of mucking about in casinos and getting pointlessly on the nerves of the once-famous, Louis Theroux is back making the kind of show which forged his reputation in the late 90s. Within five minutes of The Most Hated Family in America (BBC2, Sun 1…

The Mark Of Cain

Channel 4, Thu 5 Apr, 9pm

27 Mar 2007

WAR DRAMA As the full weight of the war in Iraq continues to bear down on us, the related dramas and documentaries will just keep on coming. After Peter Kosminky’s The Government Inspector and Michael Winterbottom’s Road to Gauntanamo, here comes…

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds some new dramas about madnes

13 Mar 2007

Without wishing to be cruel, Jessie Wallace isn’t the kind of actress you’d associate with roles which anyone could dub as ‘classy’, not in the stereotypically glamour sense of the word anyway. Maybe feisty, shouty and boozy, but never ever classy. The…

The Trap

BBC2, Sun 18 Mar, 9pm

13 Mar 2007

SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY Writer and director Adam Curtis gained waves of acclaim and acres of flak for his Power of Nightmares series which suggested that the threat to the West from a network of Arab terrorist cells is nothing short of a…

Feature - Ashley Jensen

Funny lady

12 Mar 2007

Who would have thought that Ashley Jensen, the mild-mannered, meek Maggie from Extras, would have a guilty secret from her dark past as a student in Edinburgh? ‘I got banned from a pub on the Grassmarket,’ she admits with a barely hidden mix of remorse…

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds some new dramas verging on t

27 Feb 2007

It’s never been an easy task to translate the work of Harold Pinter onto the small screen. Some wags might suggest it’s difficult enough trying to make sense of it on stage. As part of More4’s mini-Pinter extravaganza, Celebration (More4, Sat 3 Mar, 9pm…

Occult Week TV

OCCULT WEEK

27 Feb 2007

SPOOKY DOCUMENTARIES It’s long been believed that with the death of mass popular religion in Britain the paranormal plays a much larger part in people’s belief systems. But if the double-bill opener to this short season is anything to go by…

Grapevine - showbiz news

Grapevine

13 Feb 2007

Expect many cries of ‘there’s been a murder’ with news that more episodes are to be filmed of ITV ScotCop dramas Taggart and Rebus. Four new 90-minute mysteries of the former start filming in April and further adventures for Ian Rankin’s world-weary…

15 Storeys High

12 Feb 2007

DVD With questionable wisdom, voters in the BBC’s Best Sitcom Ever poll back in 2004 utterly ignored 15 Storeys High, instead opting to find slots near the business end of the top 100 for the risible likes of ‘Allo Allo’ and Vicar of Dibley. History…

Life on Mars

12 Feb 2007

CRIME DRAMA BBC1, Tue 20 Feb, 9pm It should barely register a flicker of surprise that the Americans are all set to remake Life on Mars on their own terms, in their own way. David E Kelley, AKA Mr Ally McBeal, is behind plans for the US version…

Remote Control - TV round-up

Brian Donaldson finds that comedy-drama is often a

29 Jan 2007

There are few things on British TV more comedic and dramatic than Johnny Vegas’ shape. Showing that he has a lot of guts, the northern funnyman graces Benidorm (STV, Thu 1 Feb, 10pm - 3 stars) with a full frontal exposé of his plentiful girth after…

Child Genius

Channel 4, Thu 8 Feb, 9pm

29 Jan 2007

DOCUMENTARY Most of us would like to have a few more brain cells than we currently have at our disposal. But who would really want an IQ of 170, putting us into the top 0.002% of the population? And what if we had that mental ability and were around…

Remote Control - TV round-up

Remote Control

16 Jan 2007

So British dramas don’t hold a candle to their American counterparts, huh? We may have taken this as read for years but could a seismic shift be happening. Not that our home-grown shows are lifting themselves up to a higher plane, but our pals across…

Grapevine - showbiz news

Grapevine

16 Jan 2007

Worst casting decision of the fortnight (month/year/decade/trillennium) must be the one which has placed Mike Myers in the plum role of Keith Moon for the 2009-bound biopic of the Who drummer See Me Feel Me... That crazy blazing squad Arcade Fire are…

Comedy Cuts

ITV2, Thu 18 Jan, 10.55pm

16 Jan 2007

COMEDY Some people hold the view that since the demise of The Tube, TV’s commissioning heads haven’t really taken live music seriously. Well, what of live comedy then? Apart from the Stand-Up Show, Scotland’s Live Floor Show, and the odd bonanza on…

Remote Control - TV round-up

Remote Control

3 Jan 2007

Amid the bespectacled blundering and the wide-eyed naivety, Louis Theroux has made some witty and insightful documentaries in his time. Whether it’s been the all-too real worlds of the porn industry, white supremacy or Christian fundamentalism, he has…

Ugly Betty

Channel 4, Fri 5 Jan, 9.30pm

3 Jan 2007

COMEDY DRAMA At 9.30pm on the first Friday night of 2005, Channel 4 introduced us to the most popular new American comedy in years, My Name is Earl. So, when the exact same slot is filled by another heralded US import, you may well be steadying…

Grapevine

Plucking fruits from the cultural bush

20 Dec 2006

Oprah Winfrey will be taking some very long, very deep breaths at news that Kitty Kelley is working on a book about the broadcasting queen’s life. After all, the controversial biographer got the world into a flap over her books about Frank Sinatra (a…

Remote Control - TV round-up

Remote Control

11 Dec 2006

It may well be set in the Big Smoke and had a working title of ‘London’, but Dominic Savage’s Born Equal (BBC1, Sun 17 Dec, 9pm) explores such universal and painful truths that it would be wrong for it to have been fully metropolised. With Robert…

Remote Control - documentaries round-up

Brian Donaldson uncovers some fine documentaries a

11 Dec 2006

One of the stories of the year had to be the big whale that swam to London. So, the cryptically titled The Whale that Swam to London (Channel 4, Thu 21 Dec, 8pm) launches upon us dividing opinion between those who thought that it was a natural…

When the Levees Broke

BBC4, Mon 18 & Tue 19 Dec, 9pm

11 Dec 2006

DISASTER DOCUMENTARY ‘Only in America’ is often a phrase you hear when some weirdness occurs or a mad technological advance has been made. But surely only in a Bush America could hundreds of thousands of people (the bulk of them black and poor) be…

After Thomas

STV, Tue 26 Dec, 9pm

11 Dec 2006

FAMILY DRAMA It may well be the season to be jolly, but that has never stopped the humbug-riddled TV schedulers from dumping misery, fear and despair upon us from a great height. So, in fine Christmas (and ITV all year round) tradition, After Thomas…

Review of the year

11 Dec 2006

The Sopranos We haven’t half banged on about this in 2006, but with valid reason as the sixth season took Tony’s good/evil dichotomy to new zones as he tried to handle a gay captain, a loopy uncle and an unruly son.

Remote Control - TV round-up

Remote Control

27 Nov 2006

Yes, but is it art? This is the question that the good people of Margate are asking with both their mouths and their eyes as Antony Gormley creates his latest controversy. But rather than the constant Geordie reminder that is his Angel of the North…

Mitchell and Webb

Face off

14 Nov 2006

They may well be the gentle men of comedy but interviewing David Mitchell and Robert Webb is still an unsettling experience. The whole exchange is not unlike an episode of their glorious Channel 4 success, Peep Show. After all, they do look almost…

Doctor Who: The Invasion - DVD review

Doctor Who: The Invasion

14 Nov 2006

TV SCI-FIC Thanks to the unerring wisdom of BBC archivists, countless pieces of classic TV were junked in the early 70s to make room for a new coffee machine. Early instalments of Dr Who suffered badly in the cull, particularly those featuring the…

Remote Control

11 Nov 2006

It’s a sign of how life moves on for all of us that Jennifer Saunders’ new sitcom should be about a women’s guild in a sleepy Devon village. Perhaps because it’s so far from the madding it-crowd of Ab Fab, Jen has surrounded herself with reliable old…

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds some dramas are better at handling a crisis than others.

27 Oct 2006

While Channel 4 may have uncovered its new West Wing with Commander in Chief, and Sky One thinks that Bones has exorcised its X-Files ghost, every network on the radar is after its own 24. The State Within (BBC1, Thu 2 Nov, 9pm - 4 stars) is the closest…

Young@Yeart

More4, Mon 6 Nov, 9pm

27 Oct 2006

MUSIC DOCUMENTARY It’s easy to poke fun at or get annoyed with the old, what with their doddery, drooling, deaf ways and their less than exemplary table manners. So, it will come as a major shock to the most hard-hearted anti-senior that this…

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds a slew of iconic women on th

17 Oct 2006

Honestly, you wade through acres of telly for one strong female to pop by and all of sudden you can’t bleedin’ move for them. This fortnight alone, we have a president, a high-ranking police chief, a notorious killer, the first celebrity chef and the…

Torchwood

BBC3, Sun 22 Oct, 9pm; BBC2, Wed 25 Oct, 9pm

17 Oct 2006

SCI-FI DRAMA It could all have been such a disaster. Revamping an old TV series tends to end in calamity and/or tedium (Randall and Hopkirk, The Basil Brush Show, The Price is Right for just three) but the all-new Doctor Who has defied nature and…

Grapevine

Plucking fruits from the culturla bush

16 Oct 2006

The hottest hotseat is showbusiness keeps on hotting up with fervent rumours about the replacement for Des Lynam in the reclining Countdown chair. Carol Vorderman is still refusing to be considered a candidate while Stephen Fry is the latest name to get…

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson never thought he’d see it happen a

2 Oct 2006

Fired up with a blaze of publicity, including the less than mysterious tale of some missing tapes (robbing from rich execs at the BBC to give to the poor public?), the £8m production of Robin Hood (BBC1, Sat 7 Oct, 7.05pm) is not exactly money well…

Grapevine

Plucking fruits from the cultural bush

2 Oct 2006

Rumours of his retirement from the rap game have clearly been exaggerated as Eminem has begun on a new D12 album. Plus, Mr Mathers has a new mixtape entitled Eminem Presents: The Re-Up, due out in December, containing six marvellous new tunes... Jake…

Death of a President

More4, Mon 9 Oct, 9pm; Channel 4, Thu 19 Oct, 9pm

2 Oct 2006

DRAMA DOCUMENTARY Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea. Possibly being added to the candidates listed as America’s public enemy number one is the United Kingdom, when this goes out on air. The international incident sparked by ITV’s 1980s Saudi drama…

TV Round-up

18 Sep 2006

The glacial Tilda Swinton narrates Galapagos (BBC2, Fri 29 Sep, 9pm) with a voice that would suggest she can barely believe her eyes. I know how she feels. The set of islands just off the coast of South America was denounced by early pioneers as a hell…

The Monkees: Seasons 1 & 2

DVD review

18 Sep 2006

CLASSIC TELEVISION Nothing cripples the nostalgia-glands more than revisiting a beloved TV favourite from a distance of twenty years. Discovering that The Monkees isn’t as good as you remember is a depressing rites-of-passage through which every…

David Icke: Was He Right?

Five, Mon 2 Oct, 11pm

18 Sep 2006

SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY When a mound of grass in Peru started talking to David Icke, his life was never to be the same again. Having plied his trade as a goalkeeper for Coventry City before introducing snooker coverage for the BBC, his overnight…

Tutti Frutti - feature

Cult fiction

12 Sep 2006

Steve Cramer talks to John Byrne about history, our relationship with the past and his new stage adaptation of his cult television hit, Tutti Frutti.

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds that celebs and sluts still

7 Sep 2006

TV round-up The cult of celebrity has been handled by comedians and satirists in so many ways that it seems almost impossible to find a new way to approach the depiction of famous folk. Star Stories, pictured above (Channel 4, Fri 15 Sep, 9pm) may well…

Low Winter Sun

Channel 4, Thu 14, 21 Sep, 9pm

7 Sep 2006

CRIME DRAMA Corrupt cops have been ten a penny down the TV years. Everything from The Sweeneyto The Shieldhave focussed on gung-ho anti-heroes who bent the rules to their own ends, usually to net the baddies but not always for reasons which…