Raven

A question of etiquette – how old is too old to be making serious value judgments on kids’ TV shows? I don’t mean the judgment of the pros and programme-makers – but the judgment of anyone who grew up watching and enjoying kids’ TV, especially those who maybe went on watching a bit too long and consumed too many joints and Sports Biscuits while doing so. What’s the cut-off? 30? 40? Read more

Gene Detectives

Genealogy. Historically, it’s tricky TV. Read more

Blair: The Inside Story

Much as how an entire generation of people grew up under Mrs Thatcher, so an entire generation has grown wise under the present prime minister. Read more

Celebration

The speech given by the announcer heralding More4′s presentation of Harold Pinter’s play Celebration couldn’t have been more disheartening. Read more

Primeval

Primeval isn’t really my kind of telefantasy. By that I probably mean it’s not Doctor Who. Read more

Party Animals

Programmes that purport to “lift the lid” on certain professions consider there is always something worth lifting the lid for. Read more

Grandstand

Sometimes you get what TS Eliot meant. Grandstand, one of the most venerable sports shows in world TV, ended not with a bang but with the most whimperingly whimpery whimper imaginable. Read more

The Magic of Swan Lake

Tonight’s television was a bonanza for lovers of the extravagantly beautiful. Now there’s something rarely said about terrestrial TV, but it was (mostly) true. Read more

Ski Sunday

This may be one of the saddest confessions you have ever heard (no, really) but Ski Sunday changed my life. Read more

The Trial of Tony Blair

Here is a true story. A friend of mine stood against Tony Blair as a prospective parliamentary Labour candidate in the early 1980s. He quit in the final round, because Tony was, in his judgement “better looking” and more “electable”. My friend, now a mental health professional, also judged him to be “mad as fuck”. Read more

This Life + 10

Almost without exception the press hated this belated Christmas present from BBC2. The depth of their fervour was inversely proportional to the height of expectation the self-same newspapers had whipped up prior to the programme’s transmission. Most critics sounded as if they had been let down by the show, and wrote as if they had somehow been betrayed for previously speaking out so positively. Read more

The Secret Millionaire

It’s a rare production company that chooses to atone for past failings by making another TV series. RDF Media, however, has decided to make up for Wife Swap with The Secret Millionaire, a disconcertingly similar show that somehow manages to be the exact opposite of its flawed predecessor. Read more

The Sarah Jane Adventures

It’s the law. It’s Doctor Who-related, so we have to fret about it. It must be the subject of fevered expectation. Read more

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