“How far is London?” young Jeremy asked his father at the beginning of this week’s installment of Poldark. “Hundreds of miles,” answered Ross (Aidan Turner), which naturally meant he’d be off to the big city within the hour. “The ends … Continue reading Keeping Up With Poldark: Series 4, Episode 2 Traditional hand-to-hand combat! Mysterious illnesses! Elections…?
●●●●○ Batten down the hatches, saddle up your finest horse and set your tricorn hats to an angle: it’s that Poldark time of year again. Ross (Aidan Turner) always knows how to make an entrance – whether it’s coming back … Continue reading Keeping Up With Poldark, Series 4, episode 1 There’s trouble down in Cornwall once more with the return of Poldark
●●●●○ It only takes watching about half an episode of The Split to realise there could never have been any other title for the BBC’s glossy new divorce drama. Of course, it features a family of lawyers who specialise in … Continue reading REVIEW: The Split Abi Morgan’s layered, thematic drama is a female-led tour de force
Call the Midwife is perhaps the BBC’s most unexpected long-running series of the 2010s. A cynic might be forgiven for asking, “But who would want to tune in to a guaranteed hour of women screaming and babies crying every week, … Continue reading Crying Out for More “Call the Midwife” What “Call the Midwife” has cracked is a recipe for introducing change while appearing to stay the same.
Howard’s End E.M. Forster’s novel Howard’s End, about a trio of unconventional, wealthy orphan siblings and their collision with the more traditionalist ways of their sister’s fiancé and his family, receives a four-part miniseries in the first major adaptation of … Continue reading All The TV You Didn’t See in 2017 Lily Casson tells you what’s worth going back for.
●●●○○ This dark, seventeenth-century historical thriller takes its lead from Tom Hardy’s Taboo and Peaky Blinders, bringing shady alleys and violence to period drama. There’s something of the vanity project to this three-parter – Kit Harington co-produces and stars as … Continue reading BBC One’s “Gunpowder” – review It’s 1605, Elizabeth I is dead, James VI of Scotland has become James I of England, and Protestant persecution of Catholics is escalating.
●●●○○ Holly Bourne has come a long way from her semi-supernatural debut Soulmates, which presupposed the existence of its titular phenomenon and had a secret international organisation apparently prepared to expend resources and time keeping two teenagers apart simply because … Continue reading “It Only Happens in the Movies” – review The novel is Bourne’s most obvious feminist critique yet, though it lacks some of the humour and warm friendships that made the ‘Spinster Club’ series bearable.
Fairytales remain one of the most enduring forms of human storytelling. Having emerged long before the blockbuster reboot, they have provided centuries’ worth of spoken, written and artistic material ripe for reinterpretation according to the needs or beliefs of the … Continue reading Tangleweed & Brine – Interview with Author and Illustrator Tall and twisted tales
Steven (Stephen? Baking Borg 9000?) A three-time Star Baker at the time of writing, Steven has incurred the suspicion of the Bake Off fandom for simply being too good at everything. Undoubtedly one of the top bakers in the tent, … Continue reading Bake Off: The Quarter Finalists
●●○○○ It seems it’s written into the BBC’s statutes that they must have a series about the armed forces airing at all times, as latest war drama Our Girl returns for a third series. It essentially fills in for recently-finished … Continue reading “Our Girl” Isn’t Up To It BBC One’s latest military drama fulfils the requirements, without exciting anyone.
The scene: Westeros: The set-up: winter is here, Daenerys is (finally) there, and Game of Thrones is over for another year. It has turned dense, pseudo-medieval fantasy fiction into one of the most watched TV shows of the last decade. … Continue reading Flights of Fantasy Why is it so difficult to make fantasy on TV?
●●●●○ Back for a second series after last year’s eight-episode run took audiences from accession to the birth of an heir, Jenna Coleman’s young and opinionated Queen Victoria is faced with more political shenanigans, servants who just can’t keep their … Continue reading We Are Amused: the Return of “Victoria” Series 2, Episode 1 offers a second helping of a reliable recipe for a successful Sunday night historical drama, but can it do more?