This week we review - Harry Hill's World Of TV (Series 1 Episode 4) Whether this is one of those programmes that defies description, doesn’t inspire people to write more than the title or just so obviously "does what it says on the tin", the most that we could find written in explanation about Harry Hill's world Of TV was "Harry Hill takes the lid off a different genre of TV each week'. In fairness, he does use amusing clips from the archives to have a laugh at different genres of telly, such as...
Jul 12, 2021•46 min
This week we review - Unite (Series 1 Episode 1) When Tony (Mark Steel) a working-class, left wing South Londoner, falls in love and moves in with Imogen (Claire Skinner), an upper middle-class property developer, their respective millennial sons Ashley (Elliot Steel), a disenfranchised Croydon 'rude boy', and Gideon (Ivo Graham), Eton and Oxbridge-educated and crypto-currency literate, are forced to live under the same roof and behave like the brothers neither of them ever wanted. Class, compro...
Jul 05, 2021•46 min
This week we review - Going Straight (Episode 5) After four-odd years inside, Norman Stanley Fletcher has made parole. Aided and encouraged by his daughter Ingrid, her boyfriend - Fletch's old cell mate - Lennie Godber, and his teenage son Raymond, Fletch is determined to make it on the straight and narrow. It's not destined to be easy though. From discovering his old nemesis Mr Mackay on the same train home, to finding and trying to hold down his first 'straight' job, Fletcher faces many trials...
Jun 28, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Simon Bird: Debrief Simon Bird, star of Friday Night Dinner and The Inbetweeners, makes his stand-up special debut. Recorded during lockdown in an empty theatre, he tackles the UK's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Simon, undeterred (or emboldened?) by empty seats and eerie silence, reckons with topics such as nationalism, sexism, the environment, and the NHS. 'Debrief' is a long-lens look at the decade leading up to the UK's much-criticised response to the coronavirus...
Jun 21, 2021•46 min
This week we review - Bellamy's People (Episode 7) Award winning journalist Gary Bellamy (Rhys Thomas), host of Radio 4's 'groundbreaking' phone-in programme Down the Line, transfers to TV to present the tortuously-titled factual entertainment show "Bellamy's People (of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)". Bellamy abandons the comfort of his studio and jumps in his Triumph Stag "personality vehicle" to travel the length and breadth of the land meeting the people of Britain...
Jun 14, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Fawlty Towers (Series 1 Episode 1) Fawlty Towers, a 22-room hotel located in Torquay, the centre of the 'English Riviera', is a den of mishap and disaster. Basil Fawlty, owner and manager of the hotel, is a man of infinite capability in impoliteness, caustic intolerance and general rudeness toward the guests he views as an unwelcome imposition. His wife, Sybil, is of a more practical demeanour, but seems to have an immunity to work, so the running of the hotel is often left...
Jun 07, 2021•44 min
This week we review - The League Of Gentlemen (Series 1 Episode 5) The League of Gentlemen is a surreal British sitcom that premiered on BBC Two in 1999. The programme is set in Royston Vasey, a fictional town in northern England, originally based on Alston, Cumbria and follows the lives of bizarre characters, most of whom are played by three of the show's four writers – Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith – who, along with Jeremy Dyson, formed the League of Gentlemen comedy troup...
May 31, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Motherland (Series 1 Episode 2) Motherland is a show all about navigating the trials and traumas of middle-class motherhood, looking at the competitive and unromantic sides of parenting - not the cute and acceptable public face of motherhood. We meet the 'Alpha Mums' headed by Amanda, who is very much the Queen Bee: everything is organised, clean and sparkly - even the kitchen cork board is a statement of success. Yet at the other end of the spectrum, we meet Liz, who's tot...
May 24, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Frank Of Ireland (Series 1 Episode 1) Frank Marron is a 32-year-old catastrophe. A misanthropic, narcissistic, fantasist in arrested development who thinks the world owes him something. Frank lives in Dublin with his mother Mary, he's single and his pocket money hasn't increased in a decade or more. Frank is a musician but he hasn't written a song or played a gig in seven years and five months. His ex-girlfriend Aine has a new boyfriend and Frank is finding this difficult t...
May 19, 2021•43 min
This week we review - Athena's Cancel Culture (Series 1 Episodes 1&2) Over the last few years, if a celebrity has ever said or done anything remotely controversial, then they've probably been cancelled. Largely performed through social media, some describe it as necessary evil to help democratise the internet and reflect the expectancy of an artist’s audience, for others it’s just a chance to shut up gobby celebs! Whatever your view, it certainly helps empower fans by diminishing celebrity c...
May 10, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Radio Active (Series 4 Episode 4) Radio Active is "Britain's first national local radio station". With presenters including Mike Stand, Mike Channel, Anna Dapter and Mike Flex, the station broadcast music from acts such as The Hee Bee Gee Bees, as well as its own original programming with shows like Round Your Parts, Gigantaquiz and Stop That Crime UK. The series originated as the 1979 Fringe show from the Oxford Revue, with stars Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins, Helen Atki...
May 03, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Third Rock From The Sun (Series 3 Episode 1) The show revolves around an extra-terrestrial research expedition from a planet on the Cepheus-Draco border attempting to live as a normal human family in the fictional city of Rutherford, Ohio. They attempt to study human society and understand the human condition, while living as humans on Earth, reflecting on human life from the perspective of aliens. Most of the episodes are named after the protagonist, Dick and in later epis...
Apr 26, 2021•44 min
This week we review - Whites (Series 1 Episode 3) Set in the kitchen of a country house hotel, Whites follows the trials and tribulations of head chef Roland and his long suffering sous chef Bib. Having been on the brink of success 15 years ago, Roland has since lost the sparkle and drive needed to win a long-coveted Michelin star. He can cook with the best of them when he puts his mind to it, but laziness gets the better of him, much to the annoyance of restaurant manager Caroline. Bib, meanwhi...
Apr 19, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Mister Winner (Series 1 Episode 3) Leslie Winner is an eternally-optimistic klutz with his heart in the right place. Somehow, despite his calamitous nature, he has found love with his fiancé Jemma and they are preparing for their wedding. The pressure is on Leslie to find, and keep a job, pay for the honeymoon and keep his father-in-law happy, his mum and her new boyfriend happy and hang on to Jemma long enough to walk up the aisle together. Will Leslie be a winner or will ...
Apr 12, 2021•46 min
This week we review - Ted Lasso (Series 1 Episode 6) Recently divorced Rebecca Welton is the new owner of AFC Richmond, a struggling team in the English Premier League and to seek revenge on her cheating ex-husband, she hires the most incompetent coach that she can find to ruin the football club - the only thing her ex ever loved. She hires Ted Lasso, an American Football coach who knows absolutely nothing about football. Arriving in Richmond with his assistant, Coach Beard, he tries to connect ...
Apr 05, 2021•45 min
This week we review - 15 Storeys High (Series 2 Episode 1) Sitcom focusing on miserable lifeguard Vince Clark, who hates being touched, and his Chinese lodger Errol, who live together in the tower block. In addition to watching Vince and Errol, we dip in and out of the lives of the other occupants of the towerblock; there's wife-swappers, bible-bashers, lap dancers, hopeless stoners, embryonic boy bands, hygiene freaks, men who shout at TVs and even a bloke who keeps a horse in the spare room. W...
Mar 29, 2021•44 min
This week we review - Mandy (Series 1 Episode 1&2) Mandy is a BBC TV series, written by and starring Diane Morgan as the title character Mandy Carter. The pilot was first broadcast in August 2020 Mandy is a woman with dreams. Big dreams. Most of all, she dreams of breeding Doberman Pinchers. But there are hurdles to overcome before that dream can become a reality. In the series we'll see her go on a health kick, rent out her small back bedroom on Airbnb and attempt a series of short-lived jo...
Mar 22, 2021•45 min
The Men from the Ministry was broadcast by the BBC between 1962 and 1977 and starred Wilfrid Hyde-White and Richard Murdoch until 1966, when Deryck Guyler replaced Hyde-White. It was written and produced by Edward Taylor with contributions from John Graham, and with some early episodes written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, it ran for 13 series, totalling 145 half-hour episodes and two specials. The series is about lazy, bungling, incompetent civil servants, "Number One" – Roland Hamilton-...
Mar 15, 2021•46 min
This week we review - Back (Series 1 Episode 1) Stephen's father, a local legend and pub landlord, has died so Stephen is set to - finally - take over the pub. Mum Ellen and sister Cass have no interest in the family business - they're 'creative', with weed to buy and energy-centres to rebalance. With his dad dead, it's now Stephen's chance to shine - his only achievements so far have been marriage (followed by divorce) and a slightly disappointing pub refurb. But when the charming Andrew turns ...
Mar 08, 2021•43 min
This week we review - Toast Of London (Series 3 Episode 5) Steven Toast is a middle-aged, middling actor with a chequered past who spends more time dealing with his problems off stage rather than performing on it. When not treading the boards, Toast haunts the voice over studios of Soho where amongst other, he endures the company and shenanigans of producers Danny Bear and the inimitable 'Yes, I can hear you' Clem Fandango. Toast lives with his friend and fellow thesp, Ed Howzer-Black and his ca...
Mar 01, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Modern Life Is Goodish (Series 4 Episode 3) Dave Gorman thinks modern life is good-ish. However, tired of endlessly being sold stuff he doesn't need, feeling manipulated by the media and harassed by technology, he's become slightly obsessive about the 'ish'. Instead of letting it drive him mad he's decided to fight back. A bit. Sort of, ish and he shares his observations and frustrations in this mischievous show. Presented using his own unique blend of stand-up and document...
Feb 22, 2021•45 min
Feb 15, 2021•47 min
This week we review - Another Case Of Milton Jones (Series 4 Episode 1) Another Case of Milton Jones is the third comedy programme starring Milton Jones written for BBC Radio 4 and ran for five series. Each week Milton plays the part of an expert in a given field, with no discernible ability or aptitude for his new found environment. Assisting him are his good friend Anton, (Tom Goodman-Hill) whom Milton has known from an early age (though the exact scenarios differ from episode to episode) and ...
Feb 08, 2021•44 min
This week we review - Green Wing (Series 12 Episode 7) South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys - Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick and their exploits in and around the titular Colorado town. The show became infamous for its profanity and dark, surreal humor that satirizes a wide range of topics towards a mature audience. Parker and Stone deve...
Feb 01, 2021•44 min
This week we review - Green Wing (Series 1 Episode 1) Green Wing follows the lives of the staff of the East Hampton Hospital Trust. The series begins with the arrival of new surgical registrar Dr Caroline Todd (Tamsin Greig), a woman who seems to manage to constantly put herself in the most embarrassing situations. During her time in the hospital she begins to form friendships with her two co-workers: half-Swiss, womanising anaesthetist Dr Guy Secretan (Stephen Mangan), and cool surgeon Dr 'Mac'...
Jan 25, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Two's Company (Series 2 Episode 1) Dorothy McNab, a prickly American authoress needs domestic help for her new Chelsea townhouse. When Robert, an irrepressibly posh British butler applies, he takes an instant dislike to her. A true Gentleman's Gentleman, Robert is stubborn and constantly frustrated by his employer's lack of decorum and sophistication. But in Dorothy he has met both his match and his adversary; equally stubborn and with a coarseness to match his impeccable m...
Jan 18, 2021•42 min
This week we review - Drunk History UK (Series 3 Episode 4) A UK version of the TV format in which inebriated comedians attempt to recount events from history. Top UK stand-ups relate their favourite historical stories while getting absolutely bladdered on a mixture of beers, wines and spirits. Their slurred versions of history are then acted out, word for word, by a host of well-known actors, celebrities and comedians Luckily, Jimmy Carr is on voice-over duties to restore some order if the drin...
Jan 11, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Futile Attempts (At Surviving Tomorrow) (Episodes 2) Life’s rubbish. However artist, comedian and manic depressive Kim Noble has just bought a microphone and he’s decided to make a podcast (like every other loser). Over ten episodes, we join Kim on a surreal and hilarious sonic journey. In a podcast unlike anything you’ve heard before, Kim’s quest to discover what makes life worth living takes him to Sting’s mansion, down a sewer, underneath a church altar and into the arms...
Jan 04, 2021•45 min
This week we review - Seinfeld (Series 8 Episode 20) Seinfeld is an American sitcom television series created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1998, over nine seasons and 180 episodes. The show stars Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself who is the main protagonist and focuses on his personal life with three of friends - George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and neighbour across the hall Cosmo Kramer (Mich...
Dec 28, 2020•44 min
This week we review - Round The Horne (Series 3 Episode 21) Round the Horne was a BBC Radio comedy programme starring Kenneth Horne. First transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968, the show was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, who wrote the first three series. The fourth was written by Took, Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke and Donald Webster. Horne's supporting cast comprised Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and, in the first three series, Bill Pertwe...
Dec 21, 2020•46 min
