Category Archives: Television

‘A malignant narcissist’: uncovering the dark side of John DeLorean

Posted on by

The defining car mogul’s ego and criminality are explored in the eye-opening new Netflix docuseries Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean

In Northern Ireland, many still revere the automotive magnate John DeLorean as a local hero for situating his car factory in Belfast at the height of the Troubles, a time of extreme economic deprivation during which the influx of jobs came as a godsend. Others – his family, his personal confidantes, his colleagues, the FBI officials responsible for his eventual arrest – remember the business tycoon as a greedy, flagrantly unethical megalomaniac. The new miniseries Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean triangulates the truth in hiding somewhere between these two characterizations.

Related: Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean review – how years of lies felled an automotive giant

Continue reading...

Jessie Cave on body image, bereavement and being relentless: ‘I don’t have any secrets’

Posted on by

The actor, comic and writer talks about her bestselling debut novel, the cruelty of costume fittings, how it felt to be in the Harry Potter franchise – and finding hope in small things

As a compulsive diary writer – she has kept one since she was eight – Jessie Cave knows that, unless it gets written down, life gets forgotten. She is glad, then, that she wrote her debut novel, Sunset, because the way she felt at the time “would have just gone, and then you’re in a different place and you don’t remember”. This book, says Cave, was “absolutely the only thing I could write during that period”.

In March 2019, her younger brother Ben died in an accident aged 27. Her book was written in the aftermath, that manic feeling that sometimes comes with grief pushing her on. It went straight to No 1 on the Sunday Times’ bestseller list after being published in June. “I don’t know if I would have that energy now,” she says.

Continue reading...

Jimmy Savile: 10 years on, what has changed in uncovering abuse?

Posted on by

As TV revisits the scandal, the author of an acclaimed play about it asks what the media and key institutions have learned – and whether survivors are now treated any better

Journalistic parlour game question: what are the most significant news stories of the past decade? Few would argue with the pandemic and Brexit. Not far behind, perhaps, is the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Not many stories change our world. This one did. It transformed how we deal with allegations of sexual assault. We reassessed our attitude to celebrity. We saw more clearly than ever how morally corrupt institutions could be. It was the harbinger of the #MeToo movement.

Continue reading...

On my radar: Domhnall Gleeson’s cultural highlights

Posted on by

The actor on an exhibition that’s like a rave, the best crispy chicken and why he’s having to take a break from Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest

Domhnall Gleeson was born in Dublin in 1983. Following his father, Brendan, into acting, he broke through in 2010 with small but memorable roles in Never Let Me Go, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (as Bill Weasley) and True Grit. He played the lead in Frank and a romantic interest in Brooklyn, though he is probably best known as General Hux in the latest Star Wars trilogy. From 4 to 29 August, Gleeson stars in Enda Walsh’s new play, Medicine, at the Traverse theatre as part of the Edinburgh fnternational festival. He lives in Dublin.

Continue reading...

First image revealed of Imelda Staunton as the Queen in The Crown

Posted on by

Actor best known for Vera Drake takes over from Olivia Colman for fifth series about the UK royal family

The first image of Imelda Staunton in character as the Queen in season five of The Crown has been revealed.

Staunton has taken over from the Golden Globe winner Olivia Colman, as the fresh series ushers in a new era for the royal family. Netflix gave fans a first glimpse of Staunton as the monarch while she was still filming the next instalment of the Netflix show.

Continue reading...

The X Factor: Simon Cowell’s show is dead – but it has been for years

Posted on by

ITV is cancelling the TV talent show before it ‘fizzles out with a whimper’. After a decade of plummeting ratings, we remember its highs, lows … and Chico Time

“COWELL WIELDS AXE” roared the front page of The Sun today, as it alleged that Simon Cowell, bored of gazing over a world made in his image, has chosen to cancel The X Factor once and for all after 17 years. The story quotes an insider, who says “Simon remains at the top of his game … He owns the rights to the show, and it’s his call – not ITV’s – whether or not he drops it. Clearly the last thing he wants is for X Factor to fizzle out with a whimper and become a bit of a joke”.

About that last bit. If you wanted to produce a perfect scientific diagram of the concept of fizzling out, then it would probably look something like a graph of X Factor viewing figures over the years. After the show’s biggest year in 2010, ratings went into freefall, steadily losing droves of eyeballs every time it returned. What’s more, the show hasn’t actually been on television since 2018. For all of today’s attempts to mimic an explosive ‘The King Is Dead’-style dramatic impact, the truth is that most people assumed it quietly passed away in its sleep several years ago.

Continue reading...

Arthur, children’s animated TV series, to end after 25 years

Posted on by

The final season of the longest running animated series in the US will air in 2022

Arthur, the longest running children’s animated series in the US, will soon come to an end.

PBS Kids plans to end the beloved television show after 25 seasons, said an original developer of the show during a podcast released on Wednesday. The final season will air in 2022.

Continue reading...

BBC Olympics coverage misses events after loss of TV rights

Posted on by

Viewers complain after rights-holder Discovery puts majority of events behind paywall

The BBC has faced a series of complaints about the lack of live Tokyo Olympics coverage on its channels, after viewers failed to realise the International Olympic Committee has sold the majority of UK television rights to pay-TV company Discovery.

During the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics the BBC was able to offer dozens of free livestreams of different sports, revolutionising how British viewers watched the games and providing much-needed publicity to niche events that would not normally have enjoyed their moment in the public eye.

Continue reading...

Idris Elba: ‘I used work to exorcise my demons’

Posted on by

The actor was working as a bouncer when he got a small part in a new show called The Wire. Two decades on, he’s a blockbuster fixture. The Suicide Squad star talks about fighting for his big break, losing his dad, and why acting helped him out of a ‘dark, weird junction’

“I appreciate my quiet time, I really do,” Idris Elba tells me, “but I didn’t choose a career in quiet time.” At 48, his life seems relentlessly full of activity, projects, causes, releases. He’s the star of an imminent summer blockbuster, The Suicide Squad. He’s a rapper who releases music online at a rate of about a track a month. He hosts a podcast. He’s just released a new line of T-shirts. Earlier in 2021, Elba signed a deal with HarperCollins to write children’s books. He and his wife, the Canadian model Sabrina Dhowre Elba, have recently been petitioning world leaders (France’s, Belgium’s) on behalf of rural farmers in Africa. The couple have also co- designed a Louboutin sandal. When Elba sits down to chat to me over Zoom, it’s during a break between night shoots on a new movie he’s making, and I’m tempted to tell him to forget about it; shut the laptop; sleep.

Is he someone who hates sitting still?

Continue reading...

Jason Sudeikis: ‘Ted Lasso isn’t a show, it’s a vibe’

Posted on by

The SNL star turned Hollywood mainstay plays a caring, sharing football coach in the award-winning comedy from Apple TV+ but is he as nice in real life?

How much of Jason Sudeikis is Ted Lasso, and how much of Ted Lasso is Jason Sudeikis? The extraordinarily strong hairline belongs to both, but that’s where the similarities start to swim apart and fuse together: Lasso wears a cheerfully thick moustache with his, while Sudeikis tends towards clean-shaven; since his 2003 start on SNL, Sudeikis has spent the last 18 years making people laugh, while Lasso’s attempts at humour (“Your body is like day-old rice – if it ain’t warmed up properly, something real bad could happen”) often whoosh over the heads of those around him. But they both seemingly spend an unusual amount of thought and care on the lesser-appreciated component parts that make a large organisation (a movie set; a football club) tick.

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

Continue reading...

Sexy Beasts review – would you want to date a white mouse with a mullet?

Posted on by

In Netflix’s dating show, contestants dress as animals, insects, demons and dinosaurs – so they’re not chosen for their looks. The results are so screamingly awful, you’ll end up weeping into your sofa

Sometimes I think it makes sense as a covert government anti-Covid strategy (now that they’ve given up on overt, data-driven, scientifically sanctioned ones): give the public a new dating show in which people are done up as figures from a plushy fetishist’s (look it up, I don’t have time to explain everything) malarial dream. This will keep them spellbound with delight, or weeping silently into the sofa at the thought that the western civilisation we once hoped for is over. But, either way indoors, alone, spreading nary an airborne droplet to the young and vulnerable.

I believe it to be a multi-pronged public health strategy. First they softened us up with last week’s Apocalypse Wow on ITV2, which left the nation staring bleakly past its television screens into an unknowable future that seemed suddenly not to brim with overwhelming possibility for humanity and its endeavours. Now there is Netflix’s Sexy Beasts, a reworking of a BBC show from 2014 with no other possible justification. What comes next, I cannot imagine. After a nugatory attempt, the mind quails and halts, unwilling to go further. Thus, do I fight to explain the advent of this monstrosity into our lives.

Continue reading...

Exterminate! Exterminate! Why it’s time for Doctor Who to die

Posted on by

After 16 years, the BBC’s flagship sci-fi show is tired and suffering. It should go away to save itself

Three series is the usual tenure for an actor playing the Doctor, so rumours are rife that Jodie Whittaker is about to step down. Michaela Coel, Olly Alexander and Richard Ayoade are among those tipped for the role. But what if, instead of a new Doctor, the show actually needs something a doctor might prescribe to an exhausted patient – a rest.

The current run started in 2005, and even with such a flexible format as Doctor Who, there aren’t many TV dramas that can sustain 13 series in 16 years. (Call the Midwife is probably the best BBC attempt at that in the past decade.) Soap operas can manage it, but then soap storylines generally don’t revolve around such cataclysmic events as the universe being destroyed.

Continue reading...

Looking for love? Dress as a shark! Is Sexy Beasts a new low for dating shows?

Posted on by

A disturbing new Netflix series makes dates dress up as animals – from rhinos to insects – so that choices are made on personality not looks. So why is everyone involved so hot?

“Ass first, personality second,” says a deadpan beaver at a bar. Meanwhile, a panda with pleading eyes says she wants a baby by the age of 26. A rhino in a dress shirt chips in with “Vulnerability is our biggest muscle” – and gets a high five from a delighted dolphin.

What fresh hell is this? Are we not, for just one moment, deserving of a rest? Netflix says no. After holding us hostage for three weeks with Love Is Blind – in hindsight, not a good use of our last days before the pandemic – the evil-genius algorithm has come up with another “dating experiment”.

Continue reading...

‘I couldn’t talk about her for years’: my godmother, Amy Winehouse

Posted on by

She cooked, watched Countdown and was mentored by the legendary singer. Now, 10 years after her death, Dionne Bromfield has finally addressed the grief she couldn’t deal with aged 15

Dionne Bromfield is leaning into the screen as we talk on Zoom, recounting the moment 10 years ago when she received the news that would change her life for ever. On a sunny July day, the 15-year-old singer was waiting to go on stage. She was supporting the boyband The Wanted on tour in Wales, the atmosphere backstage fizzing with energy before each show. However, that day something felt off. People were unusually quiet, and no one would meet her eyes. Eventually, she was told something was wrong: “It’s Amy.”

Amy Winehouse, whose remarkable, all-too-brief career ended with her death a decade ago this month, had been the teenager’s godmother, friend and mentor. Winehouse had nurtured Bromfield’s burgeoning vocal skills and helped her break into a notoriously competitive industry. For years after her death, Bromfield couldn’t listen to Amy’s music, let alone think about her. After two albums and a stint presenting the CBBC show Friday Download, the singer who had been marked out by many as one to watch and performed on live television with Winehouse, stepped back from music.

Continue reading...

Jean Paul Gaultier on couture, conical bras and condoms: ‘‘No sex please, we’re British?’ Au contraire!’

Posted on by

After 50 years in fashion, the designer is having new adventures. He discusses love, work, Madonna – and why Eurotrash couldn’t be made now

Jean Paul Gaultier is waving his hands and talking nineteen to the dozen in French with a smattering of heavily accented English. I’ve only been with him for a few minutes, and already he is tearing through his thoughts on love, life, death and London, punctuated with self-deprecating comments and shrieks of laughter, as if we have known each other for ever.

We are supposed to be talking couture; he is after all fashion’s anointed “enfant terrible”, the designer celebrated for dressing Madonna in a conical bra corset, popularising skirts – well, kilts – for boys and turning the French navy’s famous marinière striped T-shirt into a wardrobe classic.

Continue reading...

Ken Burns: ‘I felt that Hemingway’s uber-masculinity was a mask’

Posted on by

The acclaimed documentary-maker on his six-part portrait of Ernest Hemingway, his 40‑year career, and working during a golden age of storytelling

Ken Burns, 67, is a veteran and celebrated American film-maker who has made more than 30 documentaries in a career lasting more than 40 years. Among them is a much lauded history of the American civil war and an equally rapturously received history of the Vietnam war. His six-part documentary on Ernest Hemingway is currently on BBC Four and iPlayer and there is a forthcoming series on Muhammad Ali.

What attracted you to Ernest Hemingway as a subject?
We’d been thinking about doing Hemingway for an awfully long time – Geoffrey C Ward, Lynn Novick [writer and co-director, respectively] and me – for literally decades, since the 1980s. We needed all that time to sort of ruminate. We knew there was a lot of new scholarship that would help complicate the picture, that it isn’t just this toxic masculine guy with a bunch of wives and a literary legacy, but even more interesting dimensions that would permit us to explore things at a greater depth. There’s a tendency, particularly in our media world, for everything to be binary: good, bad, yes, no, up, down. And we found Hemingway tantalisingly complicated, which is what we like, because it is faithful to human beings.

Continue reading...

Mo Gilligan: ‘I did bake biscuits in lockdown, but it’s too much faff’

Posted on by

The comedian and Masked Singer panellist on his fascination with chicken, mum’s Caribbean specials and the secret to great mac and cheese

At home, my mum did the cooking. It was me, my two sisters and my mum. She mainly cooked Caribbean dishes: mutton and rice, curry chicken and rice, sometimes curry goat, rice and peas, but that would be for a wedding or something. You wouldn’t have curry goat all the time. It’s mad when I think about it, because when you’ve got kids and you’ve just come back from work, I can see how easy it is to put some chips in the oven. But my mum was always cooking from scratch. To this day, she still does it.

We couldn’t afford the supermarket. My mum would get a lot from the markets, predominantly East Street or Brixton Market. We’d eat a lot of fish: snapper, sometimes red bream. It’s only since I’ve gotten a bit older that I’ve had other fish, like sea bass for example. Yeah, we weren’t eating sea bass.

Continue reading...

‘An American riddle’: the black music trailblazer who died a white man

Posted on by

A fascinating new podcast delves into the life of Harry Pace, forgotten founder of the first black-owned record label in the US – and unlocks a shocking and prescient story about race

There are, according to the academic Emmett Price, “six degrees of Harry Pace”. He is referring to the man born in 1884 who founded America’s first black-owned major record label; desegregated part of Chicago; mentored the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines and spearheaded the career of blues singer Ethel Waters. Pace is a figure who is seemingly everywhere at once, yet his name has been suspiciously absent from the history books.

“This story encapsulates how progress comes about in America – and it is never in a straight line,” says Jad Abumrad. “It is often a cycle – one that contains hope and despair, smashed together.”

Continue reading...

Fiona Shaw: ‘I got to Hollywood at 28 and they said: You’re very old’

Posted on by

The thrilling star of stage continues her TV takeover. As she joins mercilessly dark drama Baptiste, Shaw talks about Fleabag, American burnout – and marriage as a cure for chaos

There is a man outside, doing something to the windows of Fiona Shaw’s house in London, and he appears to be following her from room to room. No sooner has she laughed, apologised, picked up her laptop (we’re speaking on Zoom) and sought peace elsewhere than – scrape, tap – the top of a ladder appears again, and his face looms behind her.

No wonder. I feel like following Shaw around everywhere too. She is such fun, bracing company. She can swing from references to Freud to word-perfect renditions of Yeats lines learned in childhood, and makes some lovely observations: describing lunch with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, she says the Fleabag creator is “like April or May. She’s blossoming on all fronts, all her fingers are light green.” Even the man working on Shaw’s windows is likened to something out of Rapunzel. She seems to delight in everything.

Continue reading...

It’s time to stop making movies about Ted Bundy | Adrian Horton

Posted on by

The trailer for American Boogeyman, yet another film to cast a handsome actor as a serial killer, faces backlash. Who is asking for more Bundy content?

Ted Bundy, the serial killer convicted of murdering more than 30 women in the 1970s who probably killed upwards of 100 whose names receive little attention, once mused, in interviews on death row, that he hoped his story would sell. Thirty-two years after his death by electric chair, Bundy seems to have been prescient about a curiosity with the mild-looking sociopath. The past couple years has seen a veritable “Bundy binge” in true crime content: a two-hour Oxygen special, too many podcasts to list, the Netflix docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and the biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, starring Zac Efron as a suave Bundy.

Related: Just another pretty face: should Hollywood stop giving bad guys a face-lift?

Continue reading...