Footballing legend Wayne Rooney returns to uncover more of the nation’s best street footballers in ‘Coke Zero Presents: Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker’ – on Sky1 from Sunday 8th November at 6pm.
The BBC are of course supposed to use our money wisely and invest in things like good, solid, entertaining drama, and to give it its due, Into the Storm was very good value for our money.
Brendan Gleeson as Churchill was utterly convincing, and he’d clearly studied his subject closely; his portrayal encompassed the vocal inflections, the obstinacy and the tenacity of a man who was made “lonely” by peacetime.
Similarly, Bill Paterson as Clement Attlee did a marvellous job, though I felt he struggled at times to keep a lid on his heavy Scottish brogue, but perhaps that’s more because I expected throaty vowel sounds to issue forth from him. Read more & comment »
“Looking back now, when we and the Germans are great mates, it just seems stupid…”
That one sentence, uttered by a survivor of ‘The Great Escape’ sums up for me the post-war emotion succinctly. It really does all seem such a waste and, yes, stupid. Our men died, their men died, and ultimately, all these years on, it’s hard to imagine that the world could’ve been so radically altered by what boils down to the actions of one mad man.
But history of course often repeats itself and here we are again, the world’s reacting to, and trying to rid us of one mad man. And thousands of lives have been lost as a result. Again.
This terribly moving documentary was about the real-life story behind the classic film, The Great Escape, which – to my shame – I’ve only hazy memories of when it was shown at Christmas. My parents always watched it but I was usually too busy with Lego or some new toy to be overly interested in wartime antics. Read more & comment »
For the first time in many years, the Osmond duo will be appearing together in the UK in this hour-long special for ITV1, An Audience with Donny & Marie.
The musical extravaganza, hosted by Donny and Marie, will be based on their hugely successful Las Vegas stage show. They will be singing some old favourites and some new songs in front of a celebrity-packed audience.
I’m not sure that the BBC’s attempt at ‘humour’ – or tongue-in-cheek anyway – in billing this film as a Halloween episode was entirely appropriate. Especially given that the main protagonist of the film, Donald Angus Maclean, died while making it.
Granted the story told by Donald was all about ghosts on Skye, but despite some levity – primarily though only proffered by filmmaker Alison McAlpine – there was little to laugh at in this quirky film.
But as interesting and fascinating as the ghost stories were, equally as captivating were the residents of Skye. But perhaps the subliminal direction – in the form of haunting music and ‘creepy’ mist rolling in – affected my opinion, it felt as though Skye was a hybrid of The Wicker Man and Deliverance. Read more & comment »
As part of BBC’s Wonderland series, this odd little film was idiosyncratic and edifying to watch. And I must say, I hadn’t expected to like it much, but I did…
It seemed an odd concept, having couples talk about their lives together while sitting in their beds, but what it unearthed was a plethora of deeply moving emotion and revelation, as well as gratifyingly sweet and loving relationships.
And with hindsight, perhaps various beds were in fact a good setting for this film, even though it was often perhaps more of a Jeremy Kyle-esque show in some ways. For instance, young Tariro couldn’t tell his partner Khadijah that he loves her, even though this terribly young couple are expecting twins.
If it had been a Jeremy Kyle show, the programme’s title might’ve been ‘You’re Having My Babies But I Don’t Know If I Love You’. However, I think his admission was refreshingly truthful; teenagers mostly don’t truly understand the meaning of the word ‘love’ in relationship terms, and at least Tariro was honest enough to admit that. Read more & comment »
As we leave October behind and go boldly forward into November, there are some great shows to herald the start of winter scheduling.
In the coming week, the new series of The Family gets underway and we’ll get to look at the lives of another family in this fascinating show.
We’ll also get to see another slice of life with Yvette and Karl and chew over the contents of what goes into our food… strong stomachs at the ready for both shows! I jest; I love watching the shows about Yvette and Karl… Read more & comment »
I’m not entirely sure that I came away from this programme with the correct impressions. I’m not even sure that any impression could be correct; maybe it’s all subjective. And by all, I mean not only the content of this programme but the subject it toyed with – that of racism.
And toy with it it did, for while it was billed as an “event” and therefore one expected something rather more conclusive and shocking than the actual result, what the entire thing came down to was a very simple experiment. Too simple in fact.
The result wasn’t a result at all and it all rather petered out to nothing, but that’s not to say it didn’t yield some discoveries, but again, I think calling it an ‘event’ was overreaching. Read more & comment »
Channel 4’s Cutting Edge is of course renowned for bringing to our screens moving, emotive and thought provoking films, but this must be one of the most alternately desperately sad and incredibly inspiring that I’ve ever seen.
Katie Piper’s life changed when she was attacked; sulphuric acid was thrown in her face by way of revenge from a jilted boyfriend. He determined that he would ruin her life, and he tried, but ultimately, he hasn’t succeeded because for as much as Katie’s life is now very different, the surgeon, Mohammad Ali Jawad, who was hailed as a “medical miracle” is helping her piece back together her beautiful face. Read more & comment »
I’ve always liked Andrew Marr; he’s personable, he’s intelligent, he’s witty and self-deprecating, and he’s far more enjoyable serving up slices of history than he is presenting some political show that makes the viewer – notably, me – lose the will to live.
And we should see more of him in this role if last night’s televisual expedition into Britain’s history was anything to go by.
This is what the BBC’s press release had to say about the show…
“Marr takes viewers from the imperial power of the late-Victorian age to the dawning of modern democracy; from Charlie Chaplin to Gracie Fields; and from the trenches and sea battles of the First World War to Britain’s triumphant victory over fascism in 1945… Read more & comment »
This is without doubt one of the most truly beautiful natural history films I’ve ever seen. Documenting and observing the unique relationship that Dr Lynn Rogers has with black bears in the Minnesotan Northwoods, this remarkable film invoked many conflicting emotions for me.
First, it was uplifting and inspiring to see how dedicated Dr Rogers, his wife Donna and his research assistant Sue are to these astoundingly dignified and beautiful animals, and their devotion has been rewarded by gaining the trust of the bears, thus enabling the study of them.
However, the joy of the magnificent bears, the beyond-cute cubs and the breathtaking scenery was marred, as it so tragically often is, by the interjection into this wilderness for six weeks a year by hunters, intent on taking home a bear carcass. Read more & comment »
BBC Cymru Wales will be transporting two modern day families back to 1890 for a brand new TV series – Snowdonia Farmhouse – and the search is on to find people to take part in this unique interactive project.
The series, to be filmed and broadcast in 2010, will take two Welsh families and immerse them in 19th century life.
In a bid to find out the truth behind the tabloid headlines, Fearne Cotton spends time with party girl Peaches Geldof – who has also worked as a presenter, model and designer
This was one of those ‘ahhhhhh’ shows, and how nice to see one in amidst a TV line-up of surgeries and ‘deep’ issues.
And nobody could’ve been better placed to present this meander back into childhood and unearth those rosy-tinted memories, bringing them squinting into the light of present day. Albeit that the kids he hoped to wow with Airfix quite obviously were only humouring him – because there was a camera around – his affection for his subject made me want to go out and buy a kit.
The group of children he enlisted to help him build a life-size Airfix model probably all hoped to be the next ‘big thing’ to come out of having been on telly, and if not, well, they’ve got it on DVD to show their own kids in years to come. For them, one got the distinct feeling that Airfix was not going to be one of their cherished childhood pastimes. Read more & comment »
This programme was quite shocking and revelatory for me; shocking because of the hideous surgical procedures we saw and revelatory because it seems no matter what your race, skin colour or genetics, we all want to change ourselves, or at least some part of ourselves.
It’s quite a leveller really to know that the majority of us would change something about ourselves if we could miraculously wish it so, but this film dealt with those who had gone past just hoping they’d wake up one day and look different. Many of the people featured last night had something done about it, such was their unhappiness with themselves.
And though this documentary dealt with the ‘cosmetic’ concerns of primarily ethnic minorities – in this country that is – it certainly did underscore the fact that as a race, we humans always want what we can’t have and few of us are entirely happy with how we look. Read more & comment »
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