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A snake in the grass. Now there’s a metaphor. Everyone tries to calm down a breathless Madeline at the open of this episode, but they all appear to be missing the fact that she’s having a whale of a time. After all, they are traipsing through the ruins of an erotic temple: a monument erected … >
When we started, five weeks back, nobody could progress on their journey because the train they were on was delayed. Not so much leaves on the lines, but a small boy. That boy – Adam – is now running around the forest quite unhappily, being needled by his feral mother. That’s not just a figure … >
‘I wrote you a letter,’ Eugene Mathers tells Ralph, who has many other things on his mind at the moment, and demands simply to be told what is written on the piece of paper. This, loosely, is the connective tissue of the fourth episode of Indian Summers: Very Important Things Written On Bits Of Paper. … >
Ralph Whelan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) clearly believes in keeping his enemies close, and those who might be useful to him even closer. Channelling the awkward charms of a young Ralph Fiennes, he politely demands that his sister Sarah and Aafrin – the man that took the assassin’s bullet seemingly meant for him – get their stories … >
It’s all over, bar the shouting. And the screaming. And the executions. There will undoubtedly be a follow-up series, just as soon as Hilary Mantel gets around to finishing off her trilogy. But for now, we’ll just have to settle for six episodes of what has been the most compelling and hypnotic drama we’ve seen … >
The fallout from last week’s shooting is keenly felt by many in the second episode of Channel 4’s Indian Summers. This is an episode about things lost: incriminating documents, love in an old relationship, chances in a new one, and at one point, a lost child in the forest. Mostly however, it’s about trying to … >
History hasn’t always been kind to Cromwell. Opinion shifts quite violently to considering him Henry VIII’s right hand man to a shifty planner of self-interest. As Wolf Hall shows, such changes of opinion happened within Cromwell’s time, too. When it was Henry who suddenly decided that he didn’t like you anymore, Tudor life was lived … >
A drama of the old days of England. An England of Brideshead Revisited and A Jewel In The Crown, the sort of dramas that the BBC has a worldwide reputation for. But, despite what your memory tells you, those two programmes never aired on the BBC (they were both, in fact, ITV gems) and this … >
It wasn’t meant to be like this. When you’re the king of England in 1533, you should be confident in your belief that your throne is appointed by a God who will provide you with a brood of strapping sons to strengthen the family line. When you’re instead presented with a possibly illegitimate daughter and … >
There’s much to enjoy in this bright and breezy production of Alan Bennett’s most famous play, directed by Kate Sexton. We’re in Cutler’s Grammar School, where a group of history pupils are preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge entrance examinations, never quite sure if it’s knowledge or ideas that will get them through. Wolfblood‘s Kedar … >