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Ever since Hugh Laurie nipped across the pond to play House, a string of other leading British actors have put on their water wings in pursuit. America, it seems, just can’t get enough of us Brits at the moment. But, like most Americans, they usually want to have their (very large) cake and eat it, exploiting our reserved professionalism then asking: “Now play it again…as a New Yorker.” What makes Lie To Me so good is the fact that Tim Roth is the same rough-edged Englishman we expect. His curmudgeonly ways and sarcasm jar with that sickly sweet gloss of American drama, making us feel altogether more at home. Read the rest of this entry »
The sight of Tom Hardy leering odiously with his suit-jacket sleeves rolled up has been stalking me for weeks. He’s on the tube, next to motorways, in shopping centres – in fact, any day now I’m expecting him to turn up at work, smashing some hapless journalist’s head into their computer screen. All of which goes to show Sky has brought out the big guns for Martina Cole’s The Take, spent a shedload on marketing and not scrimped on production values, either. Is the digital channel, home so recently to the likes of Don’t Forget The Lyrics, ready to take on the mantle of saviour of British drama? Read the rest of this entry »
As a rational person, it’s easy to think “I’d never be that stupid” when it comes to falling for scams promising an easy buck, but the sad fact is the world is full of people desperate to believe. Later today, former Wall Street trader Bernie Madoff – the man behind the world’s biggest investment scam – will be sentenced for stealing up to $50 billion dollars over more than 20 years. Heavily stylised to imitate Hustle and narrated by one of the show’s stars, Robert Vaughn, this slick documentary follows the son of Bill Foxton – a retired British army major who killed himself after losing his life savings in the scandal – as he travels America to find out what made Madoff tick. Read the rest of this entry »
I should know better than to get my hopes up about a Five documentary. Ok, so the presence of former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie suggested there may well be a sensationalist tinge to Jack the Ripper: Tabloid Killer, but without a two-tonne mom or cop-with-a-camera in sight there was room for optimism. This soon ebbed away as MacKenzie boorishly promised to nail the “crooked journalist at the heart of the Ripper legend”, whose boss apparently told a few porkies to up sales of his newly launched paper, The Star. The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ sprang to mind… Read the rest of this entry »
It’s encouraging to discover the BBC still takes its remit as a public service broadcaster seriously, and indeed The Incredible Human Journey does furnish viewers with some interesting facts about the origins of mankind. It also underlines the prevailing belief that these facts should be delivered by young, attractive and slightly kooky ‘experts’. Read the rest of this entry »
