TV, Brian Donaldson

Remote Control

3 Jul 2008

When it comes to making new TV dramas, being brave and original can either make or break the show. Sometimes just playing it straight off the bat and keeping things safe can help your programme reap the rewards. Two hot and hyped BBC affairs go for the…

Superstars

3 Jul 2008

SPORT Five, Fri 11 Jul, 8pm Sporting life was very different in the 1970s. Kevin Keegan had bubblier hair, the only athletes who used artificial enhancement to boost their performance seemed to be born female in East Germany and it was still possible…

Fallout

19 Jun 2008

DRAMA Channel 4, Thu 3 Jul, 9pm The issue of young people and crime is such a hot topic that it was only a matter of time before documentary-makers got in gear and happy slapped Channel 4 commissioners into submission with a series to mark the sorry…

Remote Control

19 Jun 2008

In an age where some people believe that the Royal Family have a secret assassination wing, it’s perhaps not a good idea to have an indiscriminate dig at those guys. So, here goes: does the estate of Princess Margaret have some incriminating photos of…

Peter Kosminksy

5 Jun 2008

DOCUMENTARY/DRAMA SEASON More4, Sat 14–Sun 20 Jun In the era of Play for Today, the rabblerousing TV dramatist lurked in every nook and cranny of the BBC, cropping up on primetime slots to frighten the horses. Now though, the nation’s broadcasting…

Remote Control

5 Jun 2008

Andrea Riseborough must have a thing about playing scary people. While she wafted in to view as a spectral ghost in the BBC3 pilot of Being Human (a one-off that was the subject of such a frenzied online petition that the show was eventually…

13 Kids and Wanting More

22 May 2008

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4, Thu 22 May, 9pm When is enough really quite enough? The subjects of this film clearly don’t believe in the concept, as they churn out child after baby after offspring, some for reasons of faith, others simply because they love…

Remote Control

22 May 2008

Flicking through the TV schedules can often give the impression that we are living life like the eponymous character in big kids sci-fi series Kyle XY (BBC2, Sat 24 May, noon •••) Not only can we not quite understand what is in front of us, we probably…

Midnight Man

8 May 2008

CRIME DRAMA STV, Thu 8 May, 9pm Were James Nesbitt to be handed a script featuring the worst excesses of humanity, it would be difficult not to imagine him desperately looking for the jokes. Asides from his role as Ivan Cooper, the real-life civil…

Remote Control

8 May 2008

It’s difficult not to come round to the conclusion that the BBC is utterly obsessed with teenage pregnancy. In recent times, we’ve had Baby Borrowers, Britain’s Youngest Grannies and Adolescent Brunette Mothers on Crack with Guns. OK, maybe one of those…

Shrink Rap

24 Apr 2008

TALK SHOW More4, Mon 28 Apr, 10pm Alongside Billie Piper’s transformation from pop pixie and booze-sodden celebrity missus to respected TV actress, the most unexpected showbusiness career shift of our times has to have been Pamela Stephenson’s…

Remote Control

24 Apr 2008

It’s the end of the world as we know it and not even Hamish Macbeth or Hercule Poirot can save us. Or rather, Robert Carlyle doing a dodgy cockney accent as a hotshot engineer or David Suchet coming over all governmental as the beleaguered deputy PM in…

Poppy Shakespeare

27 Mar 2008

DRAMA Channel 4, Mon 31 Mar, 9pm The point where the axis swings between madness and sanity, the fiscal-led emphasis of modern health politics and the desire to find our place in the world are at the heart of this excellent drama based on the debut…

Remote Control

27 Mar 2008

A public health warning should accompany Storyville: The English Surgeon (BBC2, Mon 31 Mar, 11.20pm ••••). Around the one hour mark, just make sure you haven’t got your dinner in front of you as the sight of hotshot London neurosurgeon Henry Marsh…

Remote Control - TV round-up

13 Mar 2008

It’s Easter time, so there seems no reason on this ungodly earth why we shouldn’t crack open the chocolate eggs and indulge in a bit of The Passion (BBC1, Sun 16 Mar Feb, 8pm ). Anyone who remembers Robert Powell being strapped to the cross back in the…

TV: Iraq Season

13 Mar 2008

BBC/Channel 4 With the fifth anniversary of the West’s illegal invasion and errant desecration of Iraq upon us, the networks have seen no reason to halt the stream of related documentaries and dramas which have been filling the schedules on the…

Remote Control

28 Feb 2008

What could the worlds of American contemporary mobsters and 1960s ad men possibly have in common? Actually, more than you’d imagine after you’ve seen a couple of episodes of Mad Men (BBC4, Sun 2 Mar, 10pm •••). Creator Matthew Weiner earned his stripes…

White Season

28 Feb 2008

DRAMA/DOCUMENTARY SEASON BBC2, starts Fri 7 Mar No doubt there will be chins being stroked and hands being wrung over whether the BBC is correct to be giving a voice to some of the unchallenged casual xenophobia and downright blatant racism that is…

Baby Bible Bashers

14 Feb 2008

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4, Thu 14 Feb, 9pm; repeated Tue 19 Feb, 11.05pm It never fails to chill the blood to see people who claim to be working on behalf of the little baby Jesus with banners denouncing everyone from liars to homosexuals and adulterers…

Remote Control

14 Feb 2008

The internet is a wonderful, wonderful place. Where else can you tap a few buttons and see men lip-synching to Romanian hit songs or witness dogs interfering with cats or watch a yardful of hardnut prisoners do the ‘Thriller’ dance or gasp in amazement…

Remote Control

31 Jan 2008

Old spooky drawers is back. Whether you think that Derren Brown’s psychological illusionism is at best a cod sub-genre of the black arts and at worst a wholly pointless exercise which merely proves just how much of a show-off he is, I’d find it…

Ashes to Ashes

31 Jan 2008

DRAMA SPIN-OFF BBC2, Thu 7 Feb, 9pm The best things about Life on Mars were the entrances and the exits: Gene Hunt’s breathy welcome to Sam Tyler about looking forward to his spaghetti hoops meal; Tyler’s rude awakening in 1973 and his final…

Remote Control

17 Jan 2008

So, having kicked off the year in fine style with the inventive and cheeky Moving Wallpaper, it looked like things were on the up for all those on the good ship ITV. Well, hold your horses because normal service has been thoroughly resumed with the…

Wonderland

17 Jan 2008

DOCUMENTARY SEASON BBC2, Wed, 9.50pm Being on the margins can be horribly uncomfortable, a conscious choice or a place to inhabit in blissful ignorance. All three scenarios crop up in this intriguing new BBC2 season. The Secret Life of Norman…

Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY/SOAP ITV1, Thu 10 Jan, 9pm OK, I’m confused now. Having checked and then double checked the TV schedules, it appears to be true; Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach are on ITV1. Yes, ITV1. They’re the people who last year washed us away on a sea…

Pop! What is it Good For?

4 Jan 2008

The end of pop music has been trumpeted loudly from the rooftops throughout its 50-year history. The death of the two Brians, Jones and Epstein, the final splitting of The Beatles and the soulless production line of the SAW Hit Factory are a few of the…

Remote Control

4 Jan 2008

Brian Donaldson finds that amid the many new Beeb dramas, the best ones have a gaggle of ball-busting females After all the rough and ready excitement of the festive Doctor Who and Extras specials, what ticklish delights would the BBC lay before us…

Extras

13 Dec 2007

For all his faults (and his stand-up and radio work make them plentiful), Ricky Gervais at least knows when a TV comedy should bow out. Having clocked off at The Office with 12 episodes and a Christmas special, he has opted for the same strategy with…

Review of the year - TV

13 Dec 2007

The Sopranos David Chase’s cryptic diner finale wasn’t to all tastes, but the doubters were, obviously, just plain wrong. TV won’t ever be the same with Tony’s passing. Life on Mars Seems that some weren’t that keen on how the curtain was brought…

Christmas turkeys

13 Dec 2007

Jamie at Home Christmas Special He may be trying to save us from rearing a nation of porkers, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to keep plaguing our screens. Out Oliver! Channel 4, Fri 21 Dec, 9pm. Parkinson It’s the final show ever! What took him…

David Starkey’s Monarchy: The Windsors

13 Dec 2007

With a ‘measured voice of the historian’ and the occasional surreal hand gesture, Dr David Starkey gives us a potted dissection of 130 years of the British regal profession. Scantily digging over the landmarks, quarrels and scandals of UK monarchy from…

Remote Control: Documentary Reviews

13 Dec 2007

Brian Donaldson uncovers some fine documentaries about daredevils, dancers and daggers There’s a special poignancy about Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel (BBC2, Sun 23 Dec, 9pm) now that we know the subject of the show has since died. The Top Gear…

Remote Control: Drama & Comedy Reviews

13 Dec 2007

There’s a moment in the Extras finale when Andy Millman shows his disgust that George Michael is appearing in a certain other Christmas comedy. It initially sounds like a joke for its own sake, but you’ll discover it’s based on hard fact when you tune…

Coming Up

29 Nov 2007

DRAMA SEASON Channel 4, various dates and times Obviously sick and tired of BBC3 taking most of the credit for giving new writers a real shot at small screen glory, Channel 4 have taken up the cudgel big style with documentary strand First Cut and…

Remote Control

29 Nov 2007

They say that getting hitched is one of the most stressful events in anyone’s life. But what if you are sharing your big day with a woman you barely love while another 2000 weddings are going on in the same city? Probably happens in most major…

Boy A

15 Nov 2007

DRAMA Channel 4, Mon 26 Nov, 9pm As Channel 4 looks forward after glancing back at its first quarter of a century, there’s one area of programming where it seems to be especially strong: the one-off trauma drama. In recent times we’ve had Matthew…

Remote Control

15 Nov 2007

It’s probably not Jack Dee’s fault that comparisons with Curb Your Enthusiasm have been made to his Lead Balloon (BBC2, Thu 15 Nov, 9.30pm ••). Sure, Curb’s ‘Larry David’ and Lead’s Rick Spleen work in similar areas of the entertainment industry and…

Remote Control

1 Nov 2007

I’m seriously starting to believe that Stephen Poliakoff has got some pretty incriminating photos in his possession. I can’t see any other reason for the BBC continuing to pour resources his way when he comes up with depressingly disappointing efforts…

The Not Dead

1 Nov 2007

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4, Mon 12 Nov, 9pm There’s always a danger that with the constant barrage of rolling news coverage, dramas and documentaries that we may become immune to the horrors of the world, particularly the terror of warfare. But while…

Also On

18 Oct 2007

• Frankenstein Helen McCrory, Neal Pearson and Lindsay Duncan collaborate in a modern adaptation of the Mary Shelley classic, in which a scientist takes her stem cell research too personally. STV, Wed 24 Oct, 9pm. • Russell Brand’s Ponderland Old…

Remote Control

18 Oct 2007

As tragic as Rod Hull’s death was (falling off his roof while attempting to fix the TV aerial), it’s not a patch on seeing his son flailing around to try and recapture the old man’s glory. When Toby Hull first walks into view with the patched-up Emu…

The History of the World Backwards

18 Oct 2007

COMEDY BBC4, Tue 30 Oct, 10pm Of all the survivors of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Robert Newman has arguably been the one to escape with the largest amount of public goodwill behind him. Punt and Dennis have eased themselves into genteel…

Good autumn TV to stay in for

4 Oct 2007

Old stories being retold is the thrust of the new season in British drama with Dickens, Kipling, Shelley and the Bible all being dipped into. EastEnders writer Sarah Phelps is let loose on Oliver Twist (BBC1, mid Dec) with Timothy Spall as Fagin and Tom…

Hidden Palms

4 Oct 2007

Hidden Palms certainly starts with a bang with a gruesome fatality kicking proceedings off. But Kevin Williamson’s latest bash at teen drama after previous scripted glories such as Scream and Dawson’s Creek eventually fades to black with a whimper.

TV Round-up

4 Oct 2007

The state of TV comedy has been a subject of much negativity among critics, audiences and telly executives for a long, long time. Where’s the great sitcom? What happened to the solid tradition of sketch shows? Will we ever see a programme which treats…

The Sopranos - final season

6 Sep 2007

In May 1998, traumatised executives at US cable channel Home Box Office (HBO) were in mourning when the last episode of the ground-breaking spoof chat show comedy The Larry Sanders Show aired. Having reached a creative peak since its inception in 1965…

Forgiven

Channel 4, Thu 16 Aug, 10.30pm

9 Aug 2007

FAMILY DRAMA Following in the footsteps of paedophilia drama Secret Life, this is another related single work which will make you feel pain long after the closing credits have gone. Based on a real case, Forgiven stars Derek Riddell (The Book Group…

Lovespring International

Sky One, Sun 12 Aug, 10.30pm

9 Aug 2007

COMEDY Ricky Gervais can be criticised for many things, such as his mad cackle and the popularity of Karl Pilkington. And here’s a third thing. Lovespring International would most likely never have been made had the US not fallen in love with The…

My New Home

Channel 4, Mon 13 Aug, 9pm

9 Aug 2007

SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY Stung by the claims of racism which dogged them over the Celebrity Big Bigot scandal, Channel 4 must be glad they can still make programmes like this one. My New Home catches up with three immigrant children who they first featured…

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

More4, Thu 2 Aug, 10pm

1 Aug 2007

The question was always going to be: how could Aaron Sorkin ever hope to follow up the The West Wing ? Answer: by making an almost exact template of that show’s dense visual texture and whiplash pace and dropping it into the even more hectic environs of…

The Diana Years

Sky One, Sun 5 Aug, 9pm

1 Aug 2007

As the tenth anniversary of Diana’s violent death roars into view, the memorial overload is being cranked up on TV and in the papers. Amid the raft of paperback biographies, we’ve even had a couple of novels which dramatise her death.

Thomas Telford: The Man who Built Britain

BBC2, Mon 6 Aug, 9pm

1 Aug 2007

Jeremy Clarkson will no doubt be livid if he ever watches this. The man who backed Isambard Kingdom Brunel to second place behind Churchill during the 100 Greatest Britons series in 2002 will be aghast to hear that some experts believe Scotsman Thomas…

Cape Wrath

3 Jul 2007

DRAMA Channel 4 haven’t been too lucky of late with their new British serial dramas what with the dire sub-Footballers Wives romp Goldplated and the wildly overblown and overrated Skins. So, when news arrived of this witness protection drama, it…

Tony Blair Season

18 Jun 2007

DOCUMENTARY One of the most striking cultural factors of the Blair years has been the relatively easy ride he got from the satirists. When you compare the last ten years to the Thatcher period, the comedy clubs, print media and TV shows have hardly…

Remote Control

22 May 2007

They don’t make ‘em like they used to back in the good old days, do they? The nostalgia industry is showing no sign of abating and, frankly, why should it when it consistently throws up some fascinating television. The clutch of shows about the past…

Brits Get Rich in China

22 May 2007

BUSINESS DOCUMENTARY Paul Merton recently recalled with some anxiety how he forced down a portion of cooked donkey penis in the name of travel shows. And in this documentary, a marginally traumatised businessman dines briefly on the same delicacy.

Gavin and Stacey

8 May 2007

SITCOM With ITV and Channel 4 still flailing around from one comedy outrage to another and dishing out sitcom calamity after sitcom calamity, it’s BBC3 who can proudly wear the telly crown when it comes to making this digital nation laugh. And main…

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds that the schedules have an even more rancid stench of death than usual

23 Apr 2007

Millionare socialist with a heart of gold? Or moneygrabbing wretch with less scruples than Stalin? During his lifetime, public opinion was heavily divided on Robert Maxwell, but history will probably prove to be less kind. In Maxwell (BBC2, Fri 4 May…

The Seven Sins of England

Channel 4, Tue 8 May, 10pm

23 Apr 2007

SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY Before anyone gets on their high horse, let’s admit straight off the bat that the Scots might claim to have a largely pacifist Tartan Army, but the seven sins of our Anglo Saxon brethren could be matched and probably surpassed by…

Ghosts

More4, Tue 17 Apr, 10pm

9 Apr 2007

SOCIAL DRAMA When you think about Nick Broomfield and his work, you probably don’t think grimy, subtle and slow. Though, you might conjure up an image of a posh guy with a camera upsetting all manner of ruthless crooks and political outcasts with his…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Pitcairn Story, The

The Pitcairn Story

11 Nov 2006

CRIME DOCUMENTARY Sometimes, you think that you’ll have heard it all when it comes to child sex abuse stories. And then something like this comes along. In 2004, in the remote British colony of Pitcairn Island (population 47), six local men were…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…