Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-03-28T10:30:18.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Man in a Blue Box
items: Russell T Davies: 'I’m more proud of It's A Sin than anything else - it’s a privilege'
items: David Tennant on why it's important killer Dennis Nilsen's story is told in ITV's Des: 'This is dark and bleak - and ready to be told'
items: Why Endeavour is the most comforting show on TV
items: Poldark series 3 finale: Eleanor Tomlinson reveals the truth behind the Poldark marriage
items: Why it's too soon to make a drama about the events of ITV's Manhunt
items: After Big Brother, Channel 5 has grown up and struck documentary gold
items: The Woman in White: why the BBC should stop updating the classics
items: Gwyneth Hughes' modern slavery drama Doing Money is almost too tough to watch
items: 'Dark Heart’s maverick cop belongs in a museum'
items: 'A Blue Peter badge changed my life'
items: Jodie Whittaker, Michaela Coel and Jodie Comer represent a "real sea change" in TV
items: From Wanderlust to Bodyguard, everyone's having sex – so why is it all so miserable?
items: Thanks to Apple Tree Yard, we at last have a challenging, adult drama
items: Bodyguard has finally put powerful female characters front and centre – who cares if it's "unrealistic"?
items: ‘Shameless opened up all kinds of scabs in my family’: Paul Abbott on writing from life and his latest show No Offence
items: 'Crying on TV has broken out of its talent show confines'
items: Divorced from reality: why BBC1's new drama The Split fails as feminist escapism
items: The Mighty Redcar is warm, funny and engaging, and I love it
items: TV announcers, please stop spoiling our emotional screen moments
items: Eat Well for Less is secretly one of the best shows on TV
items: Why Huw Edwards should never leave the BBC News studio
items: Three Girls is harrowing – but it's a real-life drama you need to watch
items: Paula was a mire, a mess, a great big sponge pudding stuffed with nonsense
items: 'Tak' for the memories, as we bid goodbye to The Bridge
items: "The women characters talked about men all the time": Is the BBC's #HearHer campaign really helping women in TV?
items: "Tokenism is no use to anyone" – more women on panel shows won't change anything
items: "There's snobbery at work here": Bafta TV keeps snubbing popular dramas like Broadchurch and Doctor Foster
items: "For crying out loud, could everyone stop blubbing on TV?" Alison Graham on Britain's Best Home Cook
items: We need to talk about Darren Criss’s killer performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace

Man in a Blue Box
type: item
creator: Alison Graham
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App Doctor Who 20
description: As a child, Peter Capaldi played Doctor Who in a bedroom wardrobe – Alison Graham catches up with him now he has a Tardis of his own
encoded: This article was published in RT in August 2014 and is part of our digital Doctor Who anniversary bookazine, — click here to download it for free. Peter Capaldi snorts with laughter as he describes the “BBC Entertainment version of The Ipcress File” that surrounded his unveiling as the 12th Doctor in a glittery, dry-iced, peak-time BBC1 show last August. “There was a lot of cloak-and-dagger stuff on the way to the studio; the BBC genuinely felt it had to maintain secrecy so I was taken to a car park, dropped off by one car and put in another car with a blanket over my head. For all I knew, because I couldn’t see or hear anything, there might have been no one there and it could all have been a load of baloney.” Surely acting like a spy in a Len Deighton novel must have been exciting as he shrugged on the mantle of his lifelong hero last year after weeks of fervid speculation? “Yes, if you’re 15… But you just have to go, ‘OK, yeah, if you insist.’ ” If this makes Capaldi, whose first, feature-length adventure is unveiled this Saturday, sound a bit grumpy and grudging, it shouldn’t. He’s cheerfully funny and a blessedly good talker. We’re here because Capaldi – an actor, Oscar-winning film-maker, writer, artist – has seized one of British TV’s great roles at the age of 56. He’s the oldest ever Doctor, a devotee of the show from its shaky black-and-white beginnings, who takes over the Tardis after two cute “boyfriend Doctors”, David Tennant and Matt Smith. When we meet, on a fetid, broiling hot day in London, he’s almost completed filming his first series and is striding onto the Doctor Who publicity treadmill that inevitably accompanies what is now, inescapably, a global “brand” sold around the world. It’s a planet-spanning success – last year’s 50th anniversary special was broadcast simultaneously in 94 countries and Capaldi’s launch includes Doctor Who’s first-ever “world tour” of five continents in 12 days. “These markets are really, really crazy for Doctor Who. It’…

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Russell T Davies: 'I’m more proud of It's A Sin than anything else - it’s a privilege'
type: item
date: 2021-01-16T09:00:28.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: The creator of It's A Sin talks about bringing the new Channel 4 drama to life.
encoded: When Russell T Davies came out as gay to his “lovely, middle-class” mum and dad in his early 20s, he wasn’t exactly delivering a bombshell: “I mean, look at me – a great big six-foot-six nancy, they were hardly surprised. The whole family simply rolled their eyes and said, ‘What’s for tea tonight?’” I first met Davies in 1997 in a huge shed on the backlot of the old Granada studios in Manchester where he was filming his first ITV drama, The Grand (imagine Downton Abbey in a hotel in the 1920s). It was pouring with rain and the noise of water slapping on the roof nearly overcame the limited capacities of my arthritic tape recorder. But not even the elements could defeat Davies, with his chandelier-rattling laugh and his big, bold vision as a television writer. I knew even then that here was a man who would always make himself heard, audaciously and loudly, not just in person but as the writer. He went on to create what would become punchy, classic television – Queer as Folk… Casanova… Bob & Rose… Cucumber… Years and Years… the revival of Doctor Who (of course)… Torchwood… A Very English Scandal and his latest, It’s A Sin, which starts on Channel 4 this Friday. And if he wants to refer to himself as a “nancy” then he jolly well will. Of all his work, It’s A Sin is probably Davies’s most autobiographical piece, a fiercely angry, poignant, heartbreaking, often outrageously funny, five-part account of the emerging HIV/Aids virus and its effect on a group of young gay men in the early 1980s. It’s something he’s been writing since 2016: “It took a while. People are very kind and say that someone in my position ‘must get everything you write made’, but it’s not that easy; it’s never easy to convince people to part with money.” The story starts in 1981 as the lads – quiet trainee tailor Colin; cosseted, closeted Ritchie growing up on the Isle of Wight, desperate to be an actor; and vividly camp Roscoe, rebelling against his fundamentalist religious parents – come to London a…

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David Tennant on why it's important killer Dennis Nilsen's story is told in ITV's Des: 'This is dark and bleak - and ready to be told'
type: item
date: 2020-09-12T08:00:09.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: Alison Graham talks to David Tennant about how he approached playing one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers.
encoded: In the opening episode of Des, a police officer approaches a pan on the stove in the seedy kitchen of a grim north London flat. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, guv,” shouts an underling before the detective has a chance to lift the lid. Though we don’t see it, the pan contains a human head. The flat is at 23 Cranley Gardens in Muswell Hill, an address – like 10 Rillington Place and 25 Cromwell Street, homes of mass killers Reg Christie, and Fred and Rose West – that will live in infamy. The Cranley Gardens flat was the home of Dennis Nilsen, 37, a civil servant who murdered young men. His crimes were only discovered when the drains became blocked by human flesh. The flesh that Nilsen had flushed down his toilet after he dismembered his victims – men who had fallen through the cracks in society, men Nilsen picked up in London bars, took home, ostensibly for a drink and a meal, and later killed, confident they wouldn’t be missed. Nilsen was jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 1983, after being convicted on six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, though police always believed the death toll was much higher. He died in prison in 2018. The repulsive story transfixed Britain and the wider world and remains a byword for the horrors that can lie behind the most banal doors on the most ordinary of suburban streets. David Tennant was only 12 when the case broke, so his memories are sketchy, though he later became fascinated by how an outwardly nondescript-looking man who worked in a job centre in Kentish Town, north-west London, and whose colleagues thought he was pompous and boring, went home to bloody, anarchic, murderous chaos. He plays Nilsen in ITV’s three-part Des, showing on three nights this week. It was written and executive-produced by Luke Neal, and developed by Neal with its director, Lewis Arnold. Tennant’s extraordinary performance dominates. Even when he’s not on screen, his Nilsen shadow is long and dark. He has captured not only Nilsen’s casual …

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Why Endeavour is the most comforting show on TV
type: item
date: 2019-02-24T08:42:24.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Endeavour Morse and his old-fashioned boss Fred Thursday were made for Sunday binges, says Alison Graham
encoded: It’s the dog-days of winter, and Sunday afternoons can be long, chilly expanses of grey, more grey and a bit more grey after that. The roast beef and Yorkshire puds are lying heavily but it’s too cold for a walk around the block to aid the digestion. So what could be better than a box set of Endeavour? I have an actual proper old-fashioned physical DVD box set of Endeavour and there’s still a residual thrill at putting a silvery disc into the ancient machine before I’m enveloped in comfort. I’ve watched them to bits but, truly, there’s nothing better for a post-lunch binge than Endeavour Meet the cast of Endeavour series six Here’s why Endeavour changed Morse’s look with a moustache Endeavour star Roger Allam auditioned to play Lewis in the original Inspector Morse A new series is currently airing and the Sixties have definitely stopped swinging (it’s 1969). Endeavour himself (Shaun Evans) has a moustache and looks like he’s already hit the 1970s. The old Oxford City Police service has gone, absorbed by the huge Thames Valley force. Yet I still love the box-set old days of pub saloon bars turned yellow with nicotine-stained paintwork, the old-fashioned coppering (some of it highly questionable) and that once burgeoning partnership, later friendship, between Morse and his boss, the mighty Fred Thursday (Roger Allam). The one thing that always characterises writer Russell Lewis’s Endeavour episodes (he’s written every single one) is the care he takes. These are stories you can get lost in for nearly two hours, which is a rarity in days when we are told everyone wants quick hits of short shows. But in the crazy world of rapidfire television, Russell Lewis takes his time with Endeavour, and you know you are in for a near-enough two-hour treat. I have a handful of favourites, though I think Nocturne (series two, episode two) is top of my list. There’s a delicious hint of the supernatural, even the gothic with possibly a small dash of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, …

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Poldark series 3 finale: Eleanor Tomlinson reveals the truth behind the Poldark marriage
type: item
date: 2019-02-04T10:57:00.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Will she stay loyal to Ross or choose charming Hugh?
encoded: Handsome, brave, soulful, damaged soldier Hugh Armitage takes his adored Demelza Poldark – the wife of his friend and saviour Captain Ross Poldark – to the sand dunes in Sunday’s highly charged series finale. There they stand alone, windswept and shimmering with sexual tension. Poldark series four air date confirmed First behind-the-scenes sneak peek at Poldark series 4 Poldark commissioned for a fifth – and probably final – series He’s written her poems, surreptitiously drawn her lovely image and told her, “I am wholly disorientated… shipwrecked… lost… You are the woman who I love more than life.” But the sight in Hugh’s melting cow eyes is failing after his brutal confinement in a squalid French prison and, to paraphrase inelegantly, he asks Demelza for a quickie before he goes blind. Or, as he puts it, “Shall we grant ourselves each other so I can go into the darkness knowing I have once tasted heaven?” View oEmbed on the source website It’s not a bad chat-up line, agrees Eleanor Tomlinson, who plays Demelza, a woman caught between two lovers. “Yeah, right,” she laughs. “It’s very funny, but very sweet. I think Demelza just feels honoured by the attention – no one has ever written her poetry before, and Ross has never sat down with a sketchbook and taken the time to draw her. Demelza is swept away by it all.” It’s the latest talking point between the Cornwall-based drama’s legions of fans – five million tune in every week. Will Demelza, surely the most faithful of women (and she’s had a lot to put up with), cheat on her buccaneering, often inconsiderate husband? It would be unfair to anyone who hasn’t read Winston Graham’s books and who doesn’t know the outcome to this beach-based tryst to be specific about what happens between Hugh and Demelza. But the flirtation, which began when Ross (Aidan Turner) rescued his friend Dr Dwight Enys and Hugh Armitage, scion of Cornwall gentry, during that daring raid on the French prison, has intensified on both sides during th…

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Why it's too soon to make a drama about the events of ITV's Manhunt
type: item
date: 2019-01-08T14:39:16.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: The three-part series starring Martin Clunes follows the real-life detective who caught Milly Dowler's killer – but Alison Graham says it's too early to use her name in a primetime drama
encoded: There are some names that we all know. They are the victims of crimes that convulsed the nation, that made us all turn a harsh and piercing spot-lit glare upon ourselves. The result, often, is that as a society we have been found wanting. These are, invariably, the names of children and young people… Stephen Lawrence, James Bulger and Milly Dowler. I feel considerable conflict and unease at mentioning Milly’s name. She was a 14-year-old girl not only robbed of her life, her dreams and her promise by the man who murdered her, Levi Bellfield, but she was also robbed in death of every last vestige of her privacy when her diaries were read out at her killer’s trial. Her family suffered and continues to suffer incalculably after losing her in the most brutally arbitrary way imaginable. They faced hideous indignities at Bellfield’s trial and it would later emerge that blameless Milly was at the epicentre of the phone hacking scandal that changed the face of newspaper reporting in Britain. Manhunt detective Colin Sutton:”I think about victims – I try not to think about Levi Bellfield” Meet the cast of ITV's Manhunt Viewers were impressed by Levi Bellfield drama Manhunt – but some felt uneasy about the subject matter But there you go, I’m doing it, I’m bringing up Milly Dowler’s name, which shouldn’t be bandied about by strangers like me, it should be left quietly with her family, to treasure. I hope, though, that my reason for doing so is a valid one. ITV's Manhunt – a three-part drama from Ed Whitmore based on the memoirs of the detective, Colin Sutton, who linked Bellfield with the 2002 murder of Milly as he investigated the murder of French student Amélie Delagrange. Amélie was attacked on Twickenham Green in south London in 2004 as she walked home after a night out. Manhunt is really very good, Whitmore has deliberately made sure that he didn’t write a thriller and the entire three hours are understated in the best sense. It actually feels like an authentic police proc…

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After Big Brother, Channel 5 has grown up and struck documentary gold
type: item
date: 2018-11-24T08:13:58.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: From heartwarming escapism to Michael Palin in North Korea, out of nowhere Channel 5 has become the home of smashing documentaries, says TV editor Alison Graham
encoded: I must make a confession. It’s not a big confession, it’s not Watergate, I’m not going to go on telly to insist there was no cover-up before it is revealed that there WAS a cover-up and I have to apologise publicly and leave Radio Times in a helicopter, with one last salutary wave. No, my confession is that roughly this time last year I had a favourite show that I watched in my own time, not as part of my job. I’d decided it was just too frivolous to bring to anyone’s attention, except my own as it turned out. Dear readers, I watched a two-part documentary about Christmas shopping in Harrogate and I loved it. There, I’ve said it. I’m not ashamed. It was called Harrogate: a Yorkshire Christmas and honestly, there was nothing to it, just footage of businesses in the well-heeled spa town arranging their festive window displays for the year’s best Christmas scene competition, and setting up the Christmas lights. Big Brother legends bid farewell as reality show airs final episode on Channel 5 Channel 5 to embrace original commissions and new drama in the post-Big Brother world Will axed Big Brother return on another channel? View oEmbed on the source website I loved it, and it was made by Channel 5. No other channel would have bothered, but Channel 5 will make documentaries about anything, and they do it jolly well. The Harrogate thing was pure escapism, but it was also heart-warming, a little programme about people who simply loved their town, were proud of it and wanted it to look its finest. What’s wrong with that? Channel 5 has suddenly, out of nowhere, become the home of smashing docs. Nothing fancy, just straightforward, informative stuff about disused railway lines, railway modellers, doctors, vets, farms (Our Yorkshire Farm, Tuesday 27th November: C5 clearly has a fascination with Yorkshire), Michael Palin in North Korea, and this week, Oxford Street (Oxford Street 24/7, Thursday 29th November). There’s also Egyptian Tomb Hunting with Tony Robinson (Tuesday 27th …

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The Woman in White: why the BBC should stop updating the classics
type: item
date: 2018-11-09T12:54:24.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: TV editor Alison Graham wonders why adaptations of classic novels can't be allowed to be 'of their time'
encoded: Sunday’s BBC1 adaptation of Wilkie Collins’s gothic mystery The Woman in White starts with a cross-looking Jessie Buckley eyeballing the camera and saying: “How is it that men crush women time and time again and go unpunished? If men were held accountable they would hang every hour of every day.” OK, we get the message – it’s time to buckle up, as yet another beloved classic is mined, filleted and gutted for contemporary resonances. I can imagine Wilkie Collins telling his mate Charles Dickens, while writing the novel in 1859, “Just in case it’s adapted for television in 2018, I must make sure The Woman in White has plenty of contemporary relevance.” To which Dickens surely replied, “Don’t bother, Wilkie, look what they did with Dickensian. Can we visit our mistresses now?” View oEmbed on the source website Who stars in The Woman in White? Meet the cast What time is The Woman in White on TV? I know Collins was a free thinker, with what would be termed these days a “complicated personal life”, but The Woman in White and his other best-known work The Moonstone were primarily cracking stories. In fact The Moonstone is widely considered the first ever work of detective fiction, with the first ever fictional detective, Sergeant Cuff. The Woman in White is a closely-packed thriller, full of sleights of hand and misdirection, and not just a book about a strange woman who wanders around in a big nightie, scaring people. In this particular adaptation (it’s been done twice before by the BBC) Jessie Buckley plays Marian Halcombe, half-sister of the wet Laura Fairlie, who’s also a bit of a nightie-lover. Laura is insipid and ill-used, betrothed to an older man she doesn’t love, and by the end of episode one I wished she’d find a lime kiln and walk into it. Meanwhile, hearty Marian wears loon pants and walks like a builder. Yes, she’s a modern woman who doesn’t wear her hair in a bun and bridles against being thought of as a girly girl, though this doesn’t leave her entirely bli…

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Gwyneth Hughes' modern slavery drama Doing Money is almost too tough to watch
type: item
date: 2018-11-05T15:47:14.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The BBC’s harrowing Why Slavery? season stuns viewers into inaction, argues Radio Times' TV critic Alison Graham
encoded: After watching Gwyneth Hughes’s fact-based drama Doing Money I went home stifled by a cloud of misery that couldn’t be dispersed, even by the repeats of ancient Big Bang Theories I watched long into the evening just to try to flush the horror from my system. I found Doing Money so overwhelming – the true story of Ana, a young Romanian woman working as a cleaner in Britain who was abducted by a trafficking gang from a London street and forced into sex slavery. I was harrowed as she was repeatedly brutalised into submission by a series of men who treated her savagely. To them, she and the other girls became nothing. They had nothing, they were nothing. They had no passport, no state, no home, they weren’t even allowed to keep their real names. Meet the cast of BBC2’s Doing Money How do we create more opportunities for female TV writers? Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website And in a detail that moved me because it was so pointlessly cruel, the horrible woman who kept the women (and often very young, sometimes underage girls) in check took Ana’s glasses, leaving her peering through a blurry fog. Though maybe this is just the fellow feeling of another wearer of glasses. I know I’d be lost without mine, even in the most benign situations. God knows how I’d feel in an extreme of despair, fear and pain. But can you bring yourself to watch it? To be ruthlessly honest, if it wasn’t part of my job, I think I’d have given Doing Money a wide berth. We made it our main pick of the day in our magazine listings, but more in hope than expectation. In my heart of hearts I know that it’s probably just too tough to watch and I can’t judge anyone who turns away. Doing Money is part of the BBC’s Why Slavery? season, timed to coincide with International Anti Slavery Day on 18th October, and includes six other films commissioned in collaboration with the Open University for BBC2, BBC4 and BBC iPlayer. I haven’t been able to bring myself to wa…

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'Dark Heart’s maverick cop belongs in a museum'
type: item
date: 2018-10-31T13:21:11.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Female characters only exist to marvel at DI Will Wagstaffe (Tom Riley) in ITV's outdated police drama, argues Alison Graham
encoded: I watched Dark Heart in 2016 when it first went out on that anomalous, now defunct channel Encore, where ITV put dramas it wasn’t sure what to do with (Harlots, The Frankenstein Chronicles). But the “pilot” has been taken out of the cupboard, dusted, cut in half and turned into two opening episodes (Wednesday 31st October and Thursday 1st November on ITV at 9pm) before two brand-new stories from Unforgotten’s Chris Lang, based on maverick cop Will Wagstaffe (Tom Riley). And boy, is it a museum piece. Those two years might as well have been a century. I didn’t realise how much has changed until I watched the first story again. Particularly when it comes to women characters and their relationship to male protagonists with ragged holes in their souls. Time, and women, have moved on. Everything you need to know about ITV’s Dark Heart Emma Thompson to star in new BBC drama Years and Years Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website These first two (old) episodes really are all about the man at its centre (it will be very interesting to see how the new stories pan out later in the series). Wagstaffe is the kind of male cop you don’t see any more, the one who wears a personal, terrible pain like a high-vis jacket. But lordy, just look at the female characters, ciphers who exist solely and exclusively to drive Will Wagstaffe (who is brilliant and intuitive, of course) through the story. They have no lives of their own, they breathe plot-oxygen only when they are by his side. So, he has an ex-girlfriend (Miranda Raison) with whom he gets in touch for a quickie solely to make him feel better about himself. She must hug Will post-coitally as he stares empty-eyed into the abyss. “I hardly even know my own name at the moment,” he moans. Oh, get lost. We never learn anything of her life. I don’t even know what her job is, though clearly it pays enough for a lovely flat. How do we create more opportunities for female TV writers? Will has a sist…

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'A Blue Peter badge changed my life'
type: item
date: 2018-10-17T12:36:05.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: As the iconic children's television show celebrates its 60th birthday, Radio Times' TV editor Alison Graham reflects on how the programme influenced a generation
encoded: When I was six or seven I wrote a poem about a deer and sent it to Blue Peter. It was terrible, of course, just a load of sentences featuring a lot of clanking doggerel, but as I say I was six or seven and I was no Carol Ann Duffy. Besides, I’d never seen a deer in real life as I was growing up in a heavily industrialised area of the country. Which makes me wonder why I didn’t write a poem about the steelworks’ blast furnace I could see from my bedroom window. But I wasn’t Ted Hughes, either… Konnie Huq, Anthea Turner and more to return to Blue Peter for special 60th anniversary episode Blue Peter now has a diamond badge and its seriously blingy Presenters and fans wish Blue Peter a happy 60th birthday View oEmbed on the source website Anyway, I wanted to be a poet and my mum and dad were kind enough not to tell me that (a) I would never make a living from poetry and (b) the chances are that I’d be flipping awful at it and people would run away from me and possibly call the police if I ever told them that I wrote poetry. But I won a Blue Peter badge! It arrived in a brown envelope accompanied by a lovely letter that came all the way from London. Great big London! And from the telly, too! I was thrilled beyond words. A Blue Peter badge. Can you imagine? Growing up in the 1960s, Blue Peter was simply the world and I looked at my Blue Peter badge the way I look at Tiffany Diamonds by the Yard now. Thinking about it closely all these years later, that Blue Peter badge was probably the very first affirmation of what would be my career and life choice, to be a writer. My six-year-old self loved stories and made “magazines” with “free gifts” from bits of paper and I’d write all of the content myself. My mum and sister had the good grace to look impressed whenever I “sold” them the latest edition. I knew I wanted to be some kind of a writer, even at that age, hence the poet dream. And total strangers down in Big London, on my favourite show, rewarded me for my writing. And …

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Jodie Whittaker, Michaela Coel and Jodie Comer represent a "real sea change" in TV
type: item
date: 2018-10-08T13:51:06.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham celebrates three brilliant female British stars at the centre of a new wave of television
encoded: As the quality of the light changes, and autumn brings its burnished shades and colours to a Mother Nature who's ready to cast off her dowdy cloak, it's time to switch on the central heating and murmur, "By heck, isn't telly good again?" But it's not just the brilliance and sheer talk-about excitement of the dramas - we have to mention once again the all-conquering Bodyguard, of course, which broke the boundaries of its medium to turn up on newspaper front pages and the BBC 10 o'Clock News the day after the finale. When does Killing Eve start on TV in the UK? Killing Eve author: 'I want people to be appalled by Jodie Comer's Villanelle - but also cheer her on' Phoebe Waller Bridge's Killing Eve renewed for series two before the first has even aired It's more than that: it's towering performances by incredible young female leads. View oEmbed on the source website You could stick lighted matches in my ears and I still wouldn't be able to look away from the goddess-like Michaela Coel in Black Earth Rising. True, I have very little idea what the hell is going on but I don't care, and it doesn't matter. Coel was wonderful in her own comedy show, Channel 4's Chewing Gum, and watching her in Hugo Blick's dense and dangerous drama is like being wrapped in a velvet blanket made of puzzles while being kicked in the shins. I love Coel's furious containment as Rwandan genocide survivor Kate, who was adopted as a child by human rights barrister Eve (Harriet Walter). Now she's a woman in search of her past. Kate is a driven, solitary and damaged soul in the most terrible danger. But she's fearless and pulsing with the howling need for revenge, and she looks amazing with her neat backpack, black jeans, big boots, leather jacket and sturdy, determined stride. And - fashion note - just the right amount of pitch-perfect silver jewellery. These things are important... It's an awesome performance and I think if I ever met Coel in real life she would terrify me just a little bit. What, …

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From Wanderlust to Bodyguard, everyone's having sex – so why is it all so miserable?
type: item
date: 2018-09-23T07:30:07.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: Women aren't being objectified in TV's latest hit dramas — but does all the sex have to be so worthy, asks television editor Alison Graham
encoded: Every now and again the country goes a little bit bonkers. It’s currently clutching its pearls and running into the street, hailing a passing hansom cab, to escape all the sex on telly. The fact that everyone seems to be At It has led to the kind of “Flipping heck, what do we have here?” newspaper features that use the words “cavort” and “romp”. Words, incidentally, that no one actually says to anyone in real life. There are saucy scenes all over the place as papers screen-grab the juicy bits in Bodyguard and Wanderlust and write about how it’s the women who are now calling the sexy-time shots in television dramas. Toni Collette drama Wanderlust has a wonderfully refreshing approach to sex and relationships Meet the cast of Wanderlust Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter This is all true, but then we know that telly doesn’t tend to wake up to the zeitgeist until the zeitgeist has wrapped a blanket around its knees as a pan of milk warms on the stove (see diversity in casting, which was a looooooong time coming). View oEmbed on the source website But, oh dear me, does it all have to be so joyless? It isn’t too long since the so-called destructive, “angry sex” in Doctor Foster. And much has been made of the supposedly boundary-breaking adultery drama Wanderlust (Tuesdays on BBC1), where married couple Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh decide (at the wife’s suggestion and initiation) to sleep with other people. There’s lots of sex, but it’s all so miserable – everyone sounds as if they’ve trapped a hand in the car door. After two episodes I decided I couldn’t waste another second on any of them – and God knows I love a bit of middle-class angst. In Bodyguard (Sundays on BBC1), doomed Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes) came on to her bodyguard David Budd (Richard Madden), but she was in charge. He even bridled and referred to himself as “room service” when she offered to knock on his hotel-room door for a bit of booty after she’d finished her p…

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Thanks to Apple Tree Yard, we at last have a challenging, adult drama
type: item
date: 2018-09-21T10:47:00.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: “A work of television fiction that is ruthlessly, excruciatingly honest about so many things,” says Alison Graham
encoded: Oh, it’s marvellous to be treated as an adult and to be allowed to enjoy the sunny uplands of maturity by a television drama that looks directly at me and says: “This is going to hurt.” Apple Tree Yard has been piercing and painful and a rare example of a work of television fiction that is ruthlessly, excruciatingly honest about so many things; what can be the initial heady liberation of apparently no-strings adultery for a (cover your ears/look away now) middle-aged woman with much to lose. And, most importantly, the destructive consequences of a savage act. Meet the cast of Apple Tree Yard Emily Watson on her Apple Tree Yard role: ‘Sexuality is powerful at 50’ Apple Tree Yard review: a gripping psychological thriller with a dose of Fifty Shades I know I take this particular horse to water regularly, but it still must be said, loud and clear – if a drama involves the rape of a character (female or male) it has an absolute duty to spare us little. Apple Tree Yard has spared us nothing. Its lead character Yvonne Carmichael (Emily Watson, who is just terrific) is a successful, respected geneticist, who starts a torrid affair with a stranger. They simply pick each other up after she’s given evidence to a House of Commons select committee, and do the deed in a cupboard in the Crypt. Wey-hey! It’s out of character for Yvonne, who seems to be happily married in an affluent suburb, with a lovely kitchen and a commendable recycling routine. She secretly smiles to herself on the Tube, hugging her secret, and carries a new confidence as she’s warmed like a sunflower by the attention of a thrillingly mysterious man whose name she doesn’t know. But Yvonne’s life and spirit are destroyed when she’s savagely sexually assaulted by a colleague at a leaving do, and this is where Apple Tree Yard takes us into territory that’s rarely explored – consequences. Because Apple Tree Yard is ALL consequences. It treats the attack, not just as a plot point or as a means of teaching Yvonne a m…

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Bodyguard has finally put powerful female characters front and centre – who cares if it's "unrealistic"?
type: item
date: 2018-09-15T07:30:47.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: From Keeley Hawes in Bodyguard to Jodie Comer's assassin in Killing Eve, TV has finally discovered the benefits of "gender-blind casting"
encoded: I wish I lived in a world where everybody was required to address me as “ma’am”. Bodyguard's Keeley Hawes as Home Secretary Julia Montague (SPOILERS) made it to the end of episode three before she was assassinated. But before she died in a bomb blast, everybody had always called her “ma’am”. Not just her booty-call bodyguard David Budd, but her staff, strangers, everyone. I’d like that. Recently I stayed at a posh hotel where a waiter called me “my lady”, which I thought was pushing it a bit as he wasn’t Parker and I wasn’t Lady Penelope. But “ma’am”, yes. Respectful and deferential without being “let-me-lay-down-my-coat-for-you-to-walk-on”. (Though secretly, I’d like that, too.) When does Killing Eve start on TV in the UK? Killing Eve author: ‘I want people to be appalled by Jodie Comer’s Villanelle – but also cheer her on’ Phoebe Waller Bridge’s Killing Eve renewed for series two before the first has even aired View oEmbed on the source website Nearly all of the women in Bodyguard are addressed as “ma’am” because they are doing big, important jobs. This has troubled a lot of people, including our Viewpoint writer Rohit Kachroo, the ITV News security editor, in a recent issue of Radio Times. “Counter-terrorism is largely a man’s world… many of the specialist areas shown in this programme are still dominated by men.” I’ve had arguments I really never expected to have with friends and colleagues about this aspect of Bodyguard, and there’s been a bit of a faff about it, inevitably, on social media, where no scab ever goes unpicked. Oh no! Really important pretend women characters in a pretend world in a television drama ARE WOMEN and people are upset about it! What are we to do? We can’t go giving women ideas above their stations. Fluffy, muddleheaded ladies should be at home knitting cushions with cat hair or learning to play the harp. If you depict them running important political and police departments or defusing explosives they might (gasp) want to do it in real …

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‘Shameless opened up all kinds of scabs in my family’: Paul Abbott on writing from life and his latest show No Offence
type: item
date: 2018-09-13T14:20:04.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The screenwriter opens up about revisiting his childhood for hit show Shameless – and the impact it had on his mental health
encoded: Talking to Paul Abbott is like trying to pin down a moth. He can be wildly inattentive and elliptical, he’ll settle for a few minutes then he’s up and off again, making coffee, fetching water or taking off his jumper because he’s hot. But I forgive him anything, because once you harness his restlessness, Abbott is a terrific, skin-strippingly honest, hugely funny and unguarded interviewee. We have spoken on and off over the years and first met in 2004 just after the brilliant State of Play and as Shameless was about to launch. But between Shameless, to which he eventually contributed only the odd episode and which by his own admission went on too long (it ended in 2013), and No Offence — which starts its third series on Channel 4 this week — he’d been very quiet. When is Channel 4 police drama No Offence back on TV for series 3 Autumn’s top 20 dramas – introduced by their writers and creators View oEmbed on the source website When I ask Abbott (58) why — did he have writer’s block? — he’s brutally frank. It was because the doors he had to open on to his dreadful childhood and painfully complicated family background for Shameless let out too much horror, and his already fragile mental health suffered acutely. “No, I wasn’t blocked, I never stopped writing, I just wasn’t handing it over. I think what happened with Shameless — and I have to be careful what I say here [Abbott’s relationships with some of his relatives are rocky] — I spent a lot of time running away from [my family] history. That had its consequences in mental-health terms. It didn’t stop me writing, I just wasn’t handing it over and that’s as toxifying as not writing.” Abbott’s upbringing is well documented; abandoned by his mother when he was nine and brought up by his sister, with just occasional appearances from his feckless father, portrayed as Frank Gallagher in Shameless. Abbott’s creation of this infamous drunk infuriated his dad, and the pair stopped speaking. “The truth about Shameless is that …

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'Crying on TV has broken out of its talent show confines'
type: item
date: 2018-09-09T07:45:25.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: Can everyone on TV please dry their eyes, pleads Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham
encoded: I like Bank Holiday Mondays, those welcome blips in the calendar that scream: “I’m a free day, waste me! Go on, no one will judge you if you sit in your dressing gown until 2pm eating croissants. You’re at work again tomorrow, when once more you will be a productive and useful member of society, when people will stop you in the office kitchen to talk about Bodyguard – and there will be carrot cake because it’s always someone’s birthday at Radio Times.” So Bank Holiday Mondays tend to be squandered on daytime television, and I don’t feel I must face any kind of judgement as I pick my way through the daffodils of Homes under the Hammer, Wanted Down Under and Escape to the Country (of course, without Escape to the Country my life would be a long bleak avenue of existential despair). And, a new one for me, BBC1’s Murder, Mystery and My Family. Celebrity MasterChef 2018 line-up revealed: Gemma Collins, Spencer Matthews and Dolly Parton’s sister Stella to star Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website Well it’s got “murder” in the title, and “mystery”, so clearly it’s right up my bloodstained boulevard. I enjoyed it, too. It’s a clever idea where two barristers re-examine evidence in old murder cases where the guilty were hanged but where modern-day family members feel there has been a miscarriage of justice. Then a judge reviews the case and decides whether the conviction is unsafe. I’m not sure what happens after that. But anyway, it’s a hit and will return next year with a new series. Watching this random episode, though, instantly, I knew, I just knew, as I looked straight at the family member, and said, “That lady is going to cry, as people always do on television when they unearth a long-dead distant family member’s sad story.” Sure enough, she did cry, quite a lot, about a relative she had never met (the convicted woman was executed for killing her husband in the 1920s). Here we go again. The tears, the ascribing of motive…

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Divorced from reality: why BBC1's new drama The Split fails as feminist escapism
type: item
date: 2018-09-07T11:54:52.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: "I feel that I am expected to love The Split simply because its three main characters are women," says Alison Graham, "yet they all still talk about men all of the time"
encoded: I’m in torment. I’m lost in a vortex of pointless obsession because I hate every single one of the jackets in The Split. That white one that divorce solicitor Hannah (Nicola Walker) wears, the one that makes her look like a 1950s provincial butcher? I hate it. The pink thing wronged decent wife Goldie (Meera Syal) wears to her divorce court hearing in Tuesday’s episode? I hate that one, too. In fact, there’s a scene where all the women are wearing jackets and I can’t stand a single one. But wait, of course, the jackets aren’t the real problem here (though they are truly horrible). No, it’s The Split itself. I have a visceral antipathy towards Abi Morgan’s divorce drama. Meet the cast of BBC divorce drama The Split RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox First look: BBC divorce drama The Split is sharp, smart and entertaining View oEmbed on the source website I think it’s all the posturing and fake insights. “A pre-nup is written by the head when the heart has forgotten it once loved,” Hannah said last week. The words came from her mouth, not from a really inappropriate greetings card, which is surely where they belong. Now, I’m sure that The Split could be viewed as glossy escapism, what with all the expensive clothes (not the jackets, though) and the shoes and the handbags and the lovely houses. Hannah, it has to be said, has the most amazing kitchen. I bow to no one in my love for glossy escapism, particularly glossy escapism featuring women who gather around bottles of wine to make said fake insights. (See Mistresses, that great beacon of female-centric nonsense, which is one of my all-time favourite flu-viewing box sets. It helps to have a slight fever when you watch it.) But I feel that I am expected to love The Split simply because its three main characters – sisters Hannah, Nina and Rose – are women. Hey, look, it’s a Lady-Drama, let’s make Aperol Spritzes and do each other’s hair. The women in The Split are su…

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The Mighty Redcar is warm, funny and engaging, and I love it
type: item
date: 2018-09-05T11:11:47.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Documentaries
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Radio Times TV Editor Alison Graham delights in the Yorkshire resort town and BBC series that's close to home
encoded: Redcar means a lot to my family. Not so much now, when we are all scattered by the winds of career and family, but decades ago as we grew up nearby. We still visit and we are protective of this seen-betterdays seaside resort on the North East coast. So when I was at a BBC2 new-season launch at a posh London hotel, the kind of place where the lighting is so pointlessly subdued you need a burning torch to find the lifts, and the new docu-soap The Mighty Redcar was announced, I groaned. Everything you need to know about BBC's The Mighty Redcar Autumn’s top 20 dramas – introduced by their writers and creators Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website Then my hackles went up and I polished the chip on my shoulder to a buff shine. Oh God, I thought, it’ll be one of those “Ooh, look at the funny northerners” series, like the Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse sketches where someone kept northerners as pets. I wasn’t alone. I saw my brother a few weeks later, who wondered, “I’ve seen trailers for something called The Mighty Redcar. Is it a joke?” I hope not. To us Redcar was the place we piled off to at the first hint of sun on a weekend. Dad would wrestle with the windbreak and put up the deckchairs, the kids would pelt into the freezing North Sea. I did (hated) ballet lessons in Redcar; Mam and Dad had their silver wedding party there; we spent our pocket money in the massive seafront Woolies (ah, how I loved that plastic crash helmet, my favourite purchase). And I hung on to my big brother as I howled in terror on the ghost train in Redcar’s tiny amusement park. We ate fish and chips, and to this day I give a little inward swoon as I think of Redcar’s justly famous lemon-top ice creams. You’ll have to try one, I can’t explain. Then we lost loads of coppers in the amusements, failing to secure that windfall that was surely just another penny away. Today, looking at my favourite framed family photos, I realise that a lot of them were t…

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TV announcers, please stop spoiling our emotional screen moments
type: item
date: 2018-08-21T12:47:04.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Movies
subject: News
subject: Comment
description: Let viewers enjoy emotional moments in peace, begs Radio Times' television editor Alison Graham
encoded: Imagine you’ve reached the last lines of a book you’ve treasured, a book that’s led you to steal away at every available minute just to read a few more paragraphs. There’s a lovely, poignant moment at the end and you are swept away by your thoughts and reactions. It’s one of the great things about being human, about loving words and appreciating the emotions of others. Then someone you don’t know leans right into your face and barks, “WASN’T THAT FANTASTIC?! I REALLY ENJOYED IT AND I WAS VERY MOVED. CAN I RECOMMEND SOMETHING ELSE YOU MIGHT LIKE TO START READING STRAIGHTAWAY?” Eh, what? Who the hell are you? “No one you know,” comes the reply. “Just a complete stranger who’s paid to pop up and scatter inane comments into the air like a stale breeze dispersing the remains of yesterday’s barbecue tray.” “The women characters talked about men all the time”: Is the BBC’s #HearHer campaign really helping women in TV? Why Huw Edwards should never leave the BBC News studio View oEmbed on the source website That, ladies and gentlemen, is how I feel about the announcers, presentation people, call them what you will, who hijack special moments at the end of programmes precisely when I need a bit of space. Oh lord, I hear you cry, not this again. Yes, sorry, it is this again. Everyone hates it, no one’s life is enriched by someone unseen and unknown popping into our heads to offer unsolicited inanities at the end of shows – particularly dramas, where it’s as unwelcome as a seagull on a rotary dryer. Dear announcer/presentation person. Please believe me when I say that we have shared nothing, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. We haven’t sat on the sofa together getting chocolate on the cushions through an entire series of Poldark. Neither have we spilt wine on the rug because we were laughing so hard during A Very English Scandal. And yet here you are, being all chummy. It happened at the end of the movie Florence Foster Jenkins on BBC1 the other week. What a great film. I…

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Eat Well for Less is secretly one of the best shows on TV
type: item
date: 2018-08-09T07:27:03.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Yes, really. The bad diets in the Gregg Wallace BBC series showcase the beautifully British lack of self-awareness
encoded: My favourite bit in every Eat Well for Less?, my most beloved television show, is the geezer pincer-movement when a gurning Gregg Wallace and Chris Bavin ambush grocery-shopping couples as they reach the supermarket checkout. Remarkably, none of the participants is stunned by the rapid-fire mateyness as Gregg and Chris analyse the shockingly unhealthy contents of their trolleys. This is after the couples have very gamely pretended that having Gregg Wallace and Chris Bavin jump out at them during a supermarket trip is absolutely the last thing they were expecting. Gregg Wallace’s top 10 money-saving tips for shopping clever and eating well Gregg Wallace: judging Bake Off is “easier” than judging MasterChef RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox View oEmbed on the source website Oddly, though, they have signed up for the show, they are appearing on the show and have been followed throughout their shopping trip by a camera crew. For the show. What did they expect? Why did they think the camera was there? Some kind of performance art? I love BBC1’s Eat Well for Less? (sadly ended but thankfully available on iPlayer), despite its redundant question mark, because it combines my two great loves: shopping and judging people, more specifically judging people and finding them wanting. But that’s the point. Eat Well for Less? allows us to scoff heartily at anyone who doesn’t recognise vegetables, let alone cook with them, and who eats doughnuts for breakfast. And, memorably, that man who drank more than three and a half litres of cola every day. Surely his burps would power the National Grid? Gregg and Chris are kindness itself as they deal gently with almost thermo-nuclear levels of witlessness. THEY don’t judge, whereas you and I can sit at home on our lofty plateaux and say, “Why is that woman crying because she doesn’t recognise a tomato? This is a savage indictment of the British educational system. We are a nation that do…

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Why Huw Edwards should never leave the BBC News studio
type: item
date: 2018-07-27T10:37:51.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: "Whenever Huw Edwards leaves the BBC News studio, my world makes a little less sense," says Alison Graham
encoded: Whenever Huw Edwards leaves the BBC News studio and the safety of his big fancy desk to report on location, my world makes a little less sense. Huw Edwards should be securing my personal news-planet and making sure it doesn’t spin off its axis by directing operations on the bridge of the news-ship, like Lord Nelson in a good suit. But Huw (may I call you Huw, Huw?), in the open air, in public? Ah, that’s another matter. Alfresco Huw is like an antelope lapping at a water hole in the desert, fair game for hyenas. Or in this case, members of the public. As soon as I switched on the BBC News during Brexit breakdown day, I knew Huw and I would have to face our foes and get through this together. He was badly lit and squinting in the open air, a tethered balloon at a provincial fair with the waltzers on one side and the ghost train on the other. BBC gender pay gap closes as John Humphrys, Huw Edwards and Nicky Campbell take salary cut Sarah Montague “incandescent with rage” over BBC Radio 4 pay gap Channel 4 gender pay gap makes for “uncomfortable reading” admits chief executive View oEmbed on the source website Throughout his afternoon reports, poor Huw and his guests, pallid men sweating in wool, had to put up with a cacophony of noises, the shrieks and yells of members of the public. Whether they were pro- or anti-Brexit I couldn’t hear, it all became a symphony of British unrest, the dissonance of impotent fury, illustrated by someone waving Union Jack and EU flags frantically in the background. Everyone was so giddy. On Radio 4’s Today that morning, John Humphrys, interviewing the Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer after David Davis resigned (and before Boris Johnson packed his hairbrush), referred to the Labour Party as “your lot”. “Your lot”? Whatever you might think of them, they are still the Opposition, not a rival pub quiz team. Maybe the madness was fuelled by the fact it was meltingly hot. If all of this had happened on a chilly winter afternoon there woul…

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Three Girls is harrowing – but it's a real-life drama you need to watch
type: item
date: 2018-07-11T08:27:00.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: We need terrifying true crime stories on TV – like the BBC's depiction of the Rochdale sex scandal – for a better society, argues Alison Graham
encoded: There’s a heartbreaking scene – one of many – in Three Girls, based on the Rochdale child abuse scandal, where a blank-eyed, fragile, underage girl describes to the police how she was systematically raped by different men. “You are passed around like a ball. They get your number… then there’s like 50 people you don’t know ringing you.” All of these calls are demands for sex. Nicole Taylor’s harrowing story shows young girls being picked up from school in their abusers’ taxis, being plied with drink and cheap takeaways before being taken to derelict buildings to be assaulted. Then they are left to make their own way back to whatever they call home. If they are “lucky” they might be handed the odd grubby tenner. I can understand that the prospect of three hours of such remorseless bleakness might be offputting (it’s broadcast Tuesday to Thursday on BBC1). But Three Girls provides a proper, valuable public service, shining halogen-bright lights into one of Britain’s most fetid corners. View oEmbed on the source website This is what true-crime dramas – if they are careful and sensitive – can do so brilliantly. We’ve all seen and read coverage of the court cases into not just the Rochdale abuse ring, but also the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones (Little Boy Blue, which ended on ITV on Monday), the Fred and Rosemary West murders (Appropriate Adult), the hoax kidnapping of Shannon Matthews (The Moorside) and the Ipswich prostitute killings (Five Daughters). Some of us are old enough to remember our mums warning us not to go out to play on the waste ground near our houses during the hunt for and subsequent trial of the Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, dramatised in 2006 for See No Evil: the Moors Murderers. We know the bald facts of all of these infamous crimes, but what a good dramatisation does is give a story emotion and dimension. Court cases are all foreground, true crime dramas give us background. We get to “see” the victims, people like young Rhys Jones, …

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Paula was a mire, a mess, a great big sponge pudding stuffed with nonsense
type: item
date: 2018-07-06T10:57:00.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: "Up to now I’d thought that The Replacement would be this year’s drama turkey," writes Alison Graham. "But Paula, you deserve a special place on the table"
encoded: *** Spoilers ahead. Do not read on unless you have watched the third episode of Paula *** Oh my, that really was the worst ending to one of the most dreadful television dramas of recent years. Paula was a mire, a mess, a great big sponge pudding stuffed with nonsense and topped with idiocy. There was Paula herself for a start, played by Denise Gough. It’s completely commendable for a television drama to show a mature woman exercising her sexual autonomy but come on, boffing the rat-catcher within minutes of his arrival? And what about that hapless, badly-shaved copper? They’d barely had time to wipe their feet on Paula’s well-trodden WELCOME mat before they were in the throes of helpless passion. I mean, did that man even wash? He looked filthy. Her previous lover, the married PE teacher at the school where Paula taught chemistry, ended up dead, beaten to death by the rat catcher (Tom Hughes) who for some reason had two “wives” at home, one of whom he eventually shut in a cupboard. (He also kept getting visions of his dead sister). But, dearie me, that denouement. Paula drugged then buried alive in some kind of tin coffin the rat-catcher, leaving a feeding tube up his nose. He eventually found comfort cuddling the ghost of his dead sister. Then Paula announced to the grubby copper that she was pregnant. The end. Er, what? By this point Paula had long ago slipped the bonds of coherent drama and had become a series of random exchanges and incidents, like the dog in a bag that had been left on her kitchen floor by someone or other. Everyone operated in such isolation that when she shot up a hotel loo NO ONE came to check on the noise. Or when the rat catcher smashed into parked cars at night on a residential street, overturning his van and NO ONE came out to check on the noise. Up to now I’d thought that The Replacement would be this year’s drama turkey. But Paula, you deserve a special place on the table.

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'Tak' for the memories, as we bid goodbye to The Bridge
type: item
date: 2018-07-05T08:22:42.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: As the Scandi noir crime drama comes to an end, TV editor Alison Graham reflects on the bittersweet final moments
encoded: Parting is such sweet sorrow, says Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. You’re right, Juliet love, but I’m not sure “sweet sorrow” covers that depth of feeling when one of your favourite television shows ends forever. I mean, for instance, did Juliet have a mini meltdown at the end of Mad Men? Did she cling to people at bus stops bewailing the fact she’d never see Don Draper again, after that last shot of him smiling and cross-legged in an ashram, when he’d dreamt up the I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing Coca-Cola campaign? There was nothing sweetly sorrowful about that, I can tell you – I had a difficult few months. I’m fine now, though I still cling to people at bus stops. The Bridge series 4 episode 7 recap: A killer is unmasked and an emotional reunion paves the way for the final ever episode The Bridge creator takes us on a tour of Malmo and Stockholm Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website Endings, eh? They can be fraught, they can be awful, they can be unhappy, they can be completely irritating or they can be perfect, shiny things, buffed and faceted and beautiful forever. I feel like that about The Bridge, the Swedish/Danish crime drama that ends for good on Friday 29th June on BBC2. No writer has a duty to come up with a happy ending for a beloved character, in this case emotionally shuttered detective Saga Noren (Sofia Helin). But she/he has a duty to leave us satisfied, nodding our heads, even through our tears, as we murmur, “Ah, yes, that’s a good one. Just right.” Unlike the finale to The Bridge’s Danish cousin, The Killing, which was simply weird and bad. The Bridge’s ending is note-perfect because it does what the best endings should always do – leave us thinking that, although a character has left our screens, in this case Saga, she has gone on to live a life beyond the story. She exists somewhere Out There, even though we can’t see her or know what has happened to her. There’s always been something bleakly magical …

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"The women characters talked about men all the time": Is the BBC's #HearHer campaign really helping women in TV?
type: item
date: 2018-07-04T16:31:30.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: "Hear Her is a kind of gluten-free television loaf, stodgy and dull'," TV critic Alison Graham argues
encoded: BBC seasons give me indigestion. There are only so many of these virtue-signalling “now listen while we explain something for your own good” parades I can stand. We’re currently in the midst of two: hear her, promoting programmes featuring women; and a pile of documentaries and live reports marking 70 years of the NHS. Or maybe that should be “nhs”, as the bbc seems to have a problem with upper case letters. It should be Hear Her. Or HEAR HER. I take particular issue with Hear Her, whose virulent logo (big red lips on an orange background) keeps popping up, like a tiresome relative on a camping trip, at the oddest, seemingly random moments. Or maybe they aren’t random at all. Maybe Our Girl, BBC1’s Bunty Goes to War comic strip, is seen as some kind of feminist-forward shout-out to fighting women everywhere, rather than a mawkish soap punctuated by violence, and thus deserves the Hear Her sticker on its trailers. (It doesn’t.) Where is BBC crime drama Hidden filmed? Piers Morgan on Trump, feminism, quitting morning TV – and his bid to become an “international treasure” View oEmbed on the source website Though it’s really stretching a point to shove the recent, excellent two-part documentary Conviction: Murder in Suburbia into the same lady-bracket just because the people re-examining a (man’s) murder conviction were women. Isn’t that just the kind of thing we aren’t supposed to notice any more, it’s people just getting on with valuable work, rather than Women Getting On With Valuable Work? There’s something unprepossessingly worthy about BBC seasons but Hear Her must be the most wretchedly narcissistic, a kind of gluten- free “it’s good for you so shut up and listen” television loaf that ends up feeling stodgy and dull. Or in the case of Hear Her, tokenistic. Live at the Apollo: All Girls? Why? And Snatches, BBC4’s season of monologues (and is there a more deadly phrase in the English language than “season of monologues”?) written by and for women. The first was by …

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"Tokenism is no use to anyone" – more women on panel shows won't change anything
type: item
date: 2018-06-09T07:30:19.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: Radio Times' TV editor Alison Graham argues that women trying to "be funny on male comedian terms" is a waste of time
encoded: After watching the dramatised force-feeding of suffragettes in Lucy Worsley’s recent BBC1 documentary, I read a snippet about how Channel 4’s 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown is to do an all-woman show to mark 100 years since some women were given the vote. Of course, it’s very well intentioned, but surely there’s no sensible woman on Earth who didn’t think, upon hearing the news, “Ah yes, clearly that’s what women fought for, sometimes died for, and were pinned to chairs with rubber feeding tubes shoved up their noses for. So there could be an all-woman panel show in 2018.” Meet the cast of Channel 4's comedy High and Dry RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox View oEmbed on the source website I’m sorry if this sounds snippy, but come on, why would any woman, comedian or public figure, even bother to appear on a panel show? Don’t play the game, women! Do your own thing! Don’t feel you must strain to be funny on male comedian terms, why put yourself through it? I’ve stopped watching (and listening to) panel shows. I even gave up on Have I Got News for You, for so many years a comedy beacon in my viewing week. But, nah, not any more. This wasn’t just because of the shoehorning of women into the line-up, as I have no particular objection to all-male panels as long as they are funny. Maybe it’s just the snippiness, the endless slyness, the self-satisfaction, the general corrosive powers of sarcasm (yes, I’m one to talk, I know). Maybe it’s an age thing, but I can’t be doing with any of it. I ’ve turned my back on HIGNFY parent show on Radio 4, The News Quiz, for the same reasons, much as I like Miles Jupp (I love his sitcom In and Out of the Kitchen). Maybe when you’re no longer young and angry, you’re just older and more weary, keeping up with such sourness is a waste of energy. So why any woman would jump at the chance of throwing her views down the echoing well of the male world outlook will remain a mystery to me. Th…

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"There's snobbery at work here": Bafta TV keeps snubbing popular dramas like Broadchurch and Doctor Foster
type: item
date: 2018-05-13T17:40:53.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: "Broadchurch was the most watched drama of 2017. Surely that’s worth at least a chocolate replica Bafta and a can of pop?" asks Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham
encoded: It’s a common cry every April, when the Bafta TV nominations are announced. Not just in the Radio Times office, but also in front rooms and on social media. That joyless, outraged chorus of “but what about… [and then you must insert the name of your favourite, cruelly ignored show here]?” There might also be a gentle accompanying symphony as the murmurs of “not The Crown AGAIN” waft through the atmosphere. “It’s not even on proper telly!” Unlike the Bafta TV awards themselves, of course, which are on BBC1 on Sunday. Follow all the Bafta TV Awards action as it happens – on stage and behind-the-scenes – with RadioTimes.com's LIVE BLOG View oEmbed on the source website When are the British Academy Television Awards on TV? Who’s hosting, and who’s nominated Bafta TV Awards 2018: Kate Adie “very honoured” to receive Bafta Fellowship RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox Yes, The Crown is splendid, and it should be nominated. But last year brought us two towering dramas on what I will describe through gritted teeth as “mainstream TV” that stamped on all before them, securing huge audiences and critical acclaim. Usually “critical acclaim” means “it was really good, no one watched” but Broadchurch and Doctor Foster did the double. Massive. And, come on, Broadchurch was the most watched drama of 2017. Surely that’s worth at least a chocolate replica Bafta and a can of pop? Yet look at the Bafta shortlists and what do you see? Surely there are Best Drama nominations for both Chris Chibnall and Mike Bartlett’s dramas? Best actress nods for Olivia Colman and Suranne Jones? Maybe Best Actor handshakes for David Tennant and Bertie Carvel? Think again, suckers! View oEmbed on the source website Nothing, apart from a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Julie Hesmondhalgh, who was so achingly memorable as rape victim Trish. I hope she wins, she deserves to. Now, I know ratings aren’t everything and aren’t necessarily an indicator…

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"For crying out loud, could everyone stop blubbing on TV?" Alison Graham on Britain's Best Home Cook
type: item
date: 2018-05-03T07:31:28.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham sheds tears of fury at the BBC's latest cookery challenge: "Dry your eyes, for goodness sake, it’s only food"
encoded: I texted a hurried SOS to a friend during the last stages of the recent series of MasterChef. “John Torode has cried twice in this episode. What’s going on?” I convinced myself it was a sign that the world had stopped, tilted and was heading for the eternal flames of destruction. “When John Torode cries on MasterChef” should surely be an official indicator of forthcoming disaster. You know, like that story about us having to prepare for the final conflagration if Radio 4 goes off the air. Who is Britain's Best Home Cook judge Chris Bavin? RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox View oEmbed on the source website Sometimes the DAB radio in the bedroom is a bit tardy in delivering the Today programme of a morning, and I’m already whitewashing the windows and wrapping myself in tin foil by the time it tunes itself properly and Giles Fraser is delivering a sanctimony bomb in Thought for the Day. (Thought for the Day, it always makes me feel so bad, as if I’m lounging in bed, biting the heads off mice, when I should be knitting blankets for someone in need). But I suppose it was inevitable that the habitually dry-eyed Torode should weep, because cookery shows are awash with tears. In Britain’s Best Home Cook (Thursday BBC1) people cry for no particular reason that I can make out. It’s not a ruthlessly highly pressured environment, like the MasterChef kitchen is always made out to be by Torode and Gregg Wallace with their Greek chorus of variations of, “If it’s not cooked for long enough, it won’t taste nice”. Britain’s Best Home Cook presenter Claudia Winkleman is very huggy and kind, and the judges, led by the beatified Mary Berry, hardly constitute a firing squad as they almost give themselves hernias trying not to say a bad word about anybody. And there are some very uninspiring dishes, despite the contestants having to “put all of their personality and talent into the dish.” Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newslette…

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We need to talk about Darren Criss’s killer performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace
type: item
date: 2018-04-18T11:42:22.000Z
creator: Alison Graham
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Criss is astounding as the murderous Andrew Cunanan, writes TV editor Alison Graham
encoded: There’s a bravura moment in The Assassination of Gianni Versace – American Crime Story when murderer Andrew Cunanan, resplendent in a red PVC jumpsuit, dances wildly on his own in front of a group of bemused partygoers. It’s not quite up there with Cunanan dancing in only a tiny pair of orange pants to Philip Bailey and Phil Collins’s Easy Lover as one of his pick-ups, a closeted gay elderly gentlemen, writhes in terror, his face a mask of gaffer tape. But it’s close. The best true crime shows on Netflix Who is Andrew Cunanan? Why did he kill Gianni Versace? View oEmbed on the source website If you haven’t seen The Assassination of Gianni Versace yet, then please, run directly to iPlayer with your arms outstretched and feast on any episodes that remain there. It’s brilliantly written by British screenwriter Tom Rob Smith (who also wrote one of my all-time favourites, BBC2’s London Spy, in 2015) and has an astounding central performance from Darren Criss as Cunanan. I’d never heard of Criss (he was in Glee, which passed me by) but as Cunanan, he delivers the performance of a lifetime. (Cunanan murdered fashion designer Gianni Versace in July 1997, the culmination of a serial killing spree that left five men dead. Cunanan later killed himself as police closed in.) What Rob Smith and Criss have done is make a whole person, someone who exists outside of those few bare details. Versace hardly appears in the series, which belongs almost entirely to Cunanan/Criss, as we witness a damaged life spin slowly, then quickly, then completely, out of control. Cunanan seems at first the quietest of whirlwinds, a handsome boy who drips with charm and affability. But – and this is what Criss and Rob Smith are so good at conveying – there’s something a bit off, something not quite right you can’t put your finger on. Like a photo that’s a little out of focus. And then the killing starts. Brutal, swift, out of nowhere. Yet you’ve been expecting it all along, and not just because this is…

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