TV

The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall

2 Oct 2008

DRAMA In January 2004, British photography student Tom Hurndall died after being left in a coma for nine months, the victim of a bullet fired by a member of the Israeli Defence Force. The fact that the killer, Taysir Hayb, was handed an 11-year…

Remote Control

2 Oct 2008

With the USA on the brink of its most epoch-making presidential election since the one four years ago, chances are that Afghan cable networks and Iraqi terrestrial channels will be doing their utmost to ignore the ensuing bunfight between Barack and…

Autumn Television

18 Sep 2008

Britain is in utter chaos. The dead have returned to life and are attacking the living who, once deceased, then get up and do some more killing. The only people unaware of this horrendous phenomenon are the occupants of the Big Brother household. But…

Merlin

18 Sep 2008

DRAMA It would perhaps be unfair to describe this new BBC1 post-teatime ‘is it ok to let the kids watch?’ show as ‘Robin Hood meets Doctor Who’, but you can see what the schedulers were going for when they plopped this fresh take on the Arthurian…

Remote Control

18 Sep 2008

Older viewers may recall Christina Applegate as the slightly slutty teenage airhead from annoying 80s US sitcom Married with Children. And should you have not seen the cinematic likes of Anchorman or Employee of the Month in the intervening years, you…

A night in - Upcoming film highlights on TV

15 Sep 2008

After a month of hitting the best nights in town, Miles Fielder hand picks the films worth staying in for.

The 9/11 Faker

Channel 4, Thu 11 Sep, 9pm

4 Sep 2008

And so let's roll with the annual grief-fest which marks the day when planes smashed into the heart of New York's business sector and flattened any notions of US impregnability. In the years which followed, tales of heroism and sacrifice emerged from…

Remote control

4 Sep 2008

Brian Donaldson finds some dramas over-stretching themselves and failing, while those staying within their means do the business

Pierrepoint

21 Aug 2008

DRAMA Every now and again, the general public, as represented by the reactionary tabloid press, will rise up and demand a debate on the return of capital punishment. Fortunately, the process has never gone any further than some screeching headlines…

Robert Carlyle set for role in feature-length 24: Exile film

21 Aug 2008

Robert Carlyle has a major role in the highly-anticipated 24 feature-length film 24: Exile. Featuring the first new material in over a year-and-a-half, the film picks up from the last time audiences saw Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), standing by a…

Sculpture Diaries

21 Aug 2008

DOCUMENTARY Dead Ringers once made a big impersonating deal of the rivalry between TV historians Simon Schama and David Starkey. Maybe one day we’ll see small screen art guys Waldemar Januszczak and Matthew Collings doing some doppelganger bitching…

The Wrong Door

21 Aug 2008

COMEDY There’s only one thing worse than a really bad sketch show. And that’s a really bad sketch show that has had absolutely loads of money thrown at it. So much dosh has been set aside for the special effects in The Wrong Door that no one seems to…

Kings of London

14 Aug 2008

DRAMA Channel 4, Wed 20 Aug, 11.35pm Amid yet another summer of bland sport and tedious evictions, it’s reassuring to know that there are still programmes being made which at least try to bend our minds a bit. However, this latest instalment of C4’s…

Perfect Vagina

Channel 4, Sun 17 Aug, 10pm

14 Aug 2008

Get set to cross your legs and grit your teeth as Lisa Rogers fronts a very different kind of scrapheap challenge as part of Channel 4’s The G-Spot strand. We’ve all read the headlines and overheard the news that women are literally queuing up round the…

The Cup

14 Aug 2008

COMEDY DRAMA BBC2, Thu 21 Aug, 9.30pm Do we really need another fly-on-the-wall docu-comedy-drama about flawed individuals living out their largely miserable lives? Apparently so, as The Cup smashes its way towards us with more ‘subtle’ humour and…

Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman

7 Aug 2008

DOCUMENTARY BBC4, Wed 13 Aug, 10pm Wouldn’t we all love to be handed a camera, go off wandering across the globe on the flimsiest of motives and stick our lens into people’s lives? But most people would at least try to capture some of the fun bits…

Make Me A Christian

7 Aug 2008

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4, Sun 10 Aug, 7pm While the UK may have been founded on the rock of Christian values, its modern citizens would rather play Pro Evolution Soccer, get paralytically drunk or fritter a week’s earnings away on footwear. But would a…

Spooks: Code 9

7 Aug 2008

DRAMA BBC3, Sun 10 Aug, 9pm The spin-off show is a seemingly inevitable symptom of modern TV production: when ideas are running on empty, just grab a programme, give it a shake and see what kind of sub-version can be made out of it. So, here we are in…

Car Bomb

31 Jul 2008

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4, Sun 3 Aug, 7pm The scary question posed at the end of this two-part documentary is ‘will we ever see an end to the car bomb?’ The answer is a resounding ‘no’, not unless we ditch our motors for good and walk everywhere. Even…

High Emergency

31 Jul 2008

DOCUMENTARY Five, Tue 5 Aug, 7.30pm One of the last places you’d want to find yourself stranded in the British Isles is up in the Highlands. If you thought any different you’ll change your mind after watching the first instalment of this documentary…

The Kevin Bishop Show

31 Jul 2008

COMEDY Channel 4, Fri 1 Aug, 10pm Like the mighty Bobby Davro, Kevin Bishop can do a fair old impersonation or two (his Jonathan Ross and Gary Lineker are awesome) but can’t get any material around them to save his life. There have been boasts made…

Inside the box

Edinburgh International Television Festival

22 Jul 2008

Nestled at the end of August is the Edinburgh International Television Festival which, frustratingly, is still an industry shindig but it’s good to know the calibre of celebrities you may be bumping into around town. This year’s line-up includes Doctor…

Emmys 2008 - the nominations

18 Jul 2008

The list of nominees for the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards to be held in Los Angeles on September 21. The Emmy's are often thought of as the television equivalent to the Oscars, and the list features some the best and most successful shows from…

TV- Remote Control roundup

17 Jul 2008

Allan Radcliffe frets over the sickly state of terrestrial television

Burn Up

17 Jul 2008

DRAMA BBC1, Wed 23 & Fri 25 Jul, 9pm Meet Tom McConnell (Rupert Penry-Jones), VP of Arrow Oil, the most powerful business in the world. He’s square-jawed, blue-eyed with a cut glass accent and a line in motivational patter to rival stick-thumping…

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…

No Holds Bard - Mocumentary to honour Robert Burns

19 Jun 2008

Ugly Betty and Extras actress Ashley Jensen is just one of many Scottish celebrities set to star in No Holds Bard, a 60-minute comedy mocumentary, due to begin filming next week. Celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, Jensen…

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…

The People's Story - Days Like This project launched

19 Jun 2008

Scottish Book Trust, Scottish Arts Council and BBC Radio Scotland join forces for groundbreaking book and radio project Days Like This. People the length and breadth of Scotland are being offered the chance to share their stories, as part of a unique…

Winners of Amnesty Scottish Media Awards announced

5 Jun 2008

The winners of the 2008 Amnesty Scottish Media Awards were announced in The Scottish Parliament last night. The awards, which focus upon human rights, are run in association with Amnesty.

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…

LGBT TV Special

8 May 2008

Televised gay kisses may have come a long way since Beth Jordache on Brookside but mainstream programming still lacks fair representation (for the supposed 10% of us) with only the occasional out and proud offering, mainly The L Word and Queer as Folk.

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…

BBC search for Lottery show contestants

1 May 2008

The BBC are now inviting applications for their new Saturday night Lottery game show This Time Tomorrow. Auditions will take palce in Glasgow in May, and applicants with 'big personalities' are advised to get in touch now. Further information and…

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…

The Mighty Boosh launch their own festival

18 Apr 2008

Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett, the comedy duo otherwise known as The Mighty Boosh, are to launch their own festival, it was reported today. Billed as 'a day in the country' which they will 'drag a load of friends and comedians and bands' along to…

Ian Wright quits the BBC

18 Apr 2008

Ex-England and Arsenal player Ian Wright has quit the BBC's live commentary team, claiming he no longer wants to be seen as a 'comedy jester' 'Times are changing. I don't know how long young people are going to want to sit down and watch that same…

Russell Brand turned down for Peep Show

17 Apr 2008

Russell Brand was turned down for a part in cult sitcom Peep Show before becoming famous, according to the show's star David Mitchell. Mitchell said: 'Apparently Russell auditioned for the part of Super Hans before he was well known on the first…

Richard and Judy to leave Channel 4 for UKTV

17 Apr 2008

After announcing their departure from Channel 4 after seven years, it has been announced that daytime TV stars Richard and Judy are to sign with the UKTV network. Available only through satellite and freeview, the UKTV channels include Dave and UKTV…

Colin and Justin tie the knot at last

16 Apr 2008

After 22 years together, celebrity Scots property developers Colin McAllister, 40, and Justin Ryan, 41, have married. The pair, who shot to fame hosting The Million Pound Property Experiment in 2003 and were engaged last December, married in a civil…

Rab C Nesbitt to return for Christmas?

15 Apr 2008

Ian Pattison, creator of television's Glaswegian street philosopher Rab C Nesbitt, has written a new script for a Christmas special of the show. The show's original producer and director Colin Gilbert said, 'The likelihood is, that, unless they…

Doctor Who is back

10 Apr 2008

But will Tennant stay on board the Tardis? DOCTOR WHO star David Tennant has remained tight-lipped about his future as the Time Lord after launching the fourth series with co-star Catherine Tate. Future episodes will reunite the Doctor with his…

Remote Control

10 Apr 2008

Nostalgia is currently big business, and television producers have always been quick to take advantage of our romantic yearning for times gone by, whether endlessly revisiting classic programmes or winding the clock back to our political and cultural…