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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Isn’t Aunty Beeb getting very hip and with it these days? Using words like ‘Screwed’ in the titles of their shows! Whatever next? Using the F word when Gordon Ramsay isn’t on the other end of it?! Mind you, this show was on BBC3, Aunty’s racy little sister…

And this show was very, very entertaining; I loved every minute of it! It was rather like Beadle’s About meets Watchdog, and the three very telegenic faces at the front of the show were infinitely prettier than most of the folks we usually see on consumer type shows. There was Spencer – who did the narrating bits – along with Polly and Carol who took on the roles of setting people up to teach us all a thing or two about consumer rights.

We saw several scenarios in which we, the great unwashed public, might be a bit hazy on our rights and it set us straight. In one very amusing scene, Polly and Carol had a shelf in a homewares shop rigged to collapse as some unsuspecting folks picked up an item from that shelf. And once collapsed, the winning duo of Polly and Carol then tried to charge the various bemused/fuming customers for the breakages… Read more & comment »

So the latest in a pretty long line of adaptations of Jane Austen’s Emma has come to an end, and frankly, though I love period drama, I’m not sorry to see the curtain come down on this one.

Where the previous episodes have plodded somewhat, this final one tried to cram so much into the conclusion, it was breathlessly done, but worse yet, liberties with the original were taken that disappointed me.

Of course writers always want to put their own mark on adaptations, but I suspect that’s part of the reason why Sandy Welch has found this version of Emma hasn’t exactly broken any viewing figure records. The climax, while possibly somewhat pedestrian in the original work, was tampered with rather more than I’d liked it to have been. Read more & comment »

Why, oh why, was this despicable women given airtime that I presume Channel 4 paid her for to boot? Emily Horne, convicted bigamist and duplicitous, deceitful liar, used this show to put across “her side” of what amounted to an Alice in Wonderland meets Brothers Grimm fairytale of deceit and compulsive lying.

But unlike any fairytale, this story involved real people being really conned, repeatedly. And really hurt in the process.

Having watched Horne lie and lie her way through this documentary – and also it seems her entire life, according to the evidence of those who know her best – I felt that what Emily needs is not a camera in her face, it’s a cell. A secure one at that. Read more & comment »

Becca Wilcox, a disarmingly charming and honest newbie presenter – well, I’ve never seen her before – did a good job of presenting lots of reasons why we, the overweight viewing public, shouldn’t blame ourselves for the fact we may not have seen our feet since the ‘70s.

Indeed, some of her opening lines included, “You’re going to love my programme about obesity because for once, it won’t make you feel guilty.”

However, we then saw her doing aerobics and producing some 40 odd workout DVDs and explaining that her battle with weight gain is one that rules her life… so why isn’t she just sitting around eating McDonalds and blaming them for the weight gain?

If it’s not her fault if she gains weight, why does she work so hard at her physical exercise to make sure she doesn’t? Because, despite her initial comforting it’s-not-your-fault-you’re-built-like-a-truck segues, she in fact immediately proved that actually, it is. Read more & comment »

I thought I had control over what I think, which it turns out, I – as in, the person I think I am – probably doesn’t. My brain does, both the conscious and unconscious bits of it… and that’s creepy.

So I suppose the question I was left with after watching Professor Marcus du Sautoy test and retest his own brain, is, “Is my brain ‘me’, or am I my brain?”

Confused? Well you should be. Horizon is of course historically one of those shows that tries to simplify complicated stuff so plebeians like me can make head or tails of it, and usually it works, but I’m still not entirely sure what the outcome of this film was… Read more & comment »

Oh my… which, were I not being paid to espouse a full and frank opinion, would be ‘nuff said.

I’m still not sure whether this programme was shocking or just a rather sad reflection of out media obsessed society where anything less than perfection just won’t do. I’m erring more on the side of thinking it’s a sad reflection actually…

If you missed it, the title pretty much gives away the content; it was all about parents who want their babies to be models. And it’s not only rather cut-throat, it’s a guaranteed mental scar for the parents whose babies are rejected. Read more & comment »