Features
Strictly come merchandising
BBC1's Saturday night spectacular has grown big enough for a stadium tour – complete with lucrative spin-offs.
Inside Features
Were the Seventies the Golden Age of television?
Saturday, 14 February 2009
My children are probably fed up with me telling them that there were no means of recording TV programmes when I was their age: no video recorders or DVD players or Sky+. When I add that until I was 13 I also watched everything in black-and-white, they look at me sympathetically, as if I was telling them that I was brought up in a workhouse on one bowl of gruel a day. But that's how it was. If circumstances prevented you from missing your favourite programme, circumstances sometimes as prosaic as your dad wanting to watch whatever was on the other "side" (we never said "channel" in those days), then you were stuffed. There were programmes I missed in the 1970s that I'm only catching up on now, thanks to UK Gold and ITV4.
Free Agents - I'll make you a star
Friday, 13 February 2009
Channel 4's caustic new comedy series follows the tumultuous work and love lives of three showbiz agents. Gerard Gilbert meets the show's cast-iron talent
The Word On... Gossip Girl season 2, ITV2
Friday, 13 February 2009
"'Gossip Girl' is the heiress to the Claire Standish fortune. Creator Josh Schwarz makes no secret of his debt to John Hughes; the queen bees buzzing through the show are homages to 'The Breakfast Club' and Molly Ringwald's high-school princess. That type is an American classic, but this show turns the princess into a camp queen." - Troy Patterson,www.slate.com
No way to win friends: Is Paris Hilton's latest show is the nadir of reality TV?
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Might Paris Hilton bring about the death of reality television as we know it? The perky, blonde, Barbie-doll heiress with a neat line in catchphrases – namely, "that's hot" and the coolly simpered "TTYN" (Talk To You Never) – makes for an unlikely harbinger of media meltdown. But with one bat of her mink false eyelashes and a sweep of her impeccably tanned and toned arm, she might just have sent a once mighty broadcasting edifice tumbling.
What's turning kids off the BBC?
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Children's BBC is in crisis, according to a report from the corporation itself this week. A review of the BBC's kids' offerings found audience numbers are now at all-time lows - especially for the jewel in its crown Blue Peter, viewers for which are more than 50 per cent down on the average during 2007.
Mad Men: A true guilty pleasure
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Its lack of political correctness is what makes it great, says Gerard Gilbert
A new look at Maggie
Friday, 6 February 2009
Lindsay Duncan is the latest actress to take on the role of the Iron Lady, but her portrayal is far more fire than ice, she tells Gerard Gilbert
The Word On...Skins, E4
Friday, 6 February 2009
"I am not liking this series so far! And no one that I've talked to about it is either. A lot of people turned it off after the first 10 minutes. I watched the whole episode, but I wish I hadn't. It was vulgar and very over the top. Why the hell did they end up in a strip club? Ridiculous! I hate Cook, he is a poor imitation of Chris, even drinking from a glass with a fish in it! By this time in series one I was loving the cast, and couldn't wait for more. Unfortunately, that has been ruined for me by the annoying new cast and the ridiculous story lines! I don't think I can be bothered to watch the rest of the episodes." - Smelleny, e4.com/skins
Susanna White: From Jane Eyre to Generation Kill
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Susanna White went from directing Bleak House and Jane Eyre to the set of HBO's Generation Kill. Not as strange as it seems, she tells Gerard Gilbert
Moses is TV manna
Friday, 30 January 2009
The BBC's police drama is gripping and violent, set in a noirish London of fearful immigrants and warlord 'dons' – with a touch of Doctor Who and Dennis Waterman... By Gerard Gilbert
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FIVE BEST FILMS
King of the Hill, 15
An unexceptional thirtysomething (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is minding his own business in the Spanish countryside when he is shot by an unknown assailant with a hunting rifle in this a taut, stripped-down, cat-and-mouse thriller.
Limited release
Vicky Christina Barcelona, 12A
Woody Allen’s best film for a decade is a sunny and sexy romantic drama, about two young Americans who go to Barcelona for the summer and become involved in a ménage à quatre. Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz star.
Nationwide
Three Monkeys, 15
A claustrophobic and sweaty interior drama about guilt, sexual violence and the abuse of power from the Turkish director, who is quietly becoming a major force in European cinema. Yavuz Bingol stars as a driver who takes the rap for his employer’s hit-and-run offence in return for a cash payment to help out his family.
Limited release
Revolutionary Road, 15
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio star as a dissatisfied, warring couple in this consistently absorbing and occasionally heart-rending adaptation of the Richard Yates novel.
Nationwide
Slumdog Millionaire, 15
An antic, and romantic, fable about the joys and nightmares of childhood, about a boy’s search for love, and about a teeming, terrifying city on the rise. Dev Patel stars as Jamal, the 18-year-old recounting his life as a “slumdog” on the streets of Mumbai. Nationwide