Broadchurch has been a television programme of quite exceptional brilliance and importance. Any proper analysis would need at least one repeated viewing and so will have to wait for the box set. However a few of the more obvious features can be noted at this point. In the first place the programme has given the …
Category: television
Top Telly
I am again indebted to HarpyMarx (http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/guardians-top-50-television-dramas-of-all-time/) for this list from The Guardian of their Top 50 TV Dramas. Like many others I love a list as long as it is not patently absurd, and this one, although one might disagree with it, is certainly not that. Here is the list... 1. The Sopranos 2. …
A Collation of Links
This entry is somewhat remarkable in that consists solely of links to other people’s blog entries with almost no discussion or intervention. I do most heartily commend all of the pieces, but admit that it also functions as an easy historical record for me of a period in which I have not blogged. I suppose …
American Idol 2011-12 and The Amazing Joshua
Long-term readers will know that I am fan of TV talent shows, especially those for singers, as reinvented by Messrs Cowell and Fuller some time ago. However of recent years I had become disenchanted, most especially by American Idol which has always been the benchmark, and has produced by much the highest quality of contestant …
Continue reading American Idol 2011-12 and The Amazing Joshua
My Silence – Part 3: Eyes and Ears
Any account of the past 20 months which entirely omitted what I have been watching and listening to would be absurdly incomplete. On the other hand to produce any sort of detailed list, let alone decent exegesis, would not only be impossible because of my poor memory, but would mean that I never caught up! …
Cher Hatred
During the 2010 X-Factor the outstanding performer was a 16 year old from Malvern called Cher Lloyd. She brought modernity, originality and zest, as well as a fine singing voice; it was her modernity, in the form of rapping, which was new for the X-Factor (and which made it certain she would not win - …
September Miscellany (2010)
September has been a very good month. A score of 7.07 on the Depression Scale which is the second highest ever and by far the best September. This may be partly because I am now marking more generously. It may also be partly because there is always something of a positive reaction when I emerge …
The Proms 2010
Consequent upon my ever-growing interest in classical music I have been listening to and watching more of the Proms this year than ever before. And because it has been Mahler's anniversary year, 2010 has been a particularly good year for me to do so. Having said which, the BBC's rather bizarre broadcasting practices have been something of …
Rigoletto – The ‘Live Film’
Over the weekend of 4th/5th September BBC2, along with a host of television broadcasters around the world, carried a 'live film' of Rigoletto with Placido Domingo in the title role. This was not the first 'live film' - there have been productions of Tosca and La Traviata previously - but it was certainly the first that …
Zimbabwe’s Children
After a few disappointing and shoddy documentaries which shook my faith in the ability of modern British television to produce a decent one, along came a brilliant example. Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children directed by Jezza Neumann and produced and presented by Xoliswa Sithole was intensely, at times unbearably, moving, while at the same time being extremely instructive. The …
Moving Toyshop 