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Hannibal recap: season three, episode five – Contorno
2 hours ago
Jack Crawford catches up with our antihero in an episode that shows what happens to big beasts when they forget that young cubs grow up
Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Hannibal airs on NBC in the Us on Thursdays. Do not read on unless you have watched season three, episode five, which airs in the UK on Sky Living on Wednesdays at 10pm.
It seems that every week of Hannibal now is cursed to be attached to bad news. If it weren’t bad enough that the show was already cancelled before last week’s Aperitivo, this week’s episode, Contorno, comes with the news that Hannibal stars Mads Mikkelson and Hugh Dancy’s contracts have expired. The optimistic part of that is that the stars love the show so much that they would be willing to sign new contracts, should the opportunity arise, but optimism means a »
- LaToya Ferguson
Cordon: BBC4 brings a bonkers slice of Belgian apocalypse to Saturday nights
8 hours ago
The premise of a city facing a deadly epidemic is familiar, the acting is often schlocky and little seems to make sense, but this is an oddly compelling drama
There are so many things that don’t make sense in Cordon, BBC4’s latest Saturday-night subtitled import, that I barely blinked at the idea the authorities would be able to barricade Antwerp’s citizens into their own streets, completely unnoticed, by stacking shipping containers at the ends of their roads. And yet this is where we ended up last weekend, after two hours of the Belgian drama in which the unexplained death of a man who had helpfully already been to visit the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (Niid) somehow escalated in the shutdown of part of a city.
So Cordon is clearly nonsense. But it’s fairly enjoyable nonsense, in part because of the Flemish, an interesting language to listen to if, »
- Vicky Frost
BBC2 news show goes gonzo opting for Skype coverage of Tunisia attack
8 hours ago
Victoria Derbyshire programme ditches on-site camera crew for ‘edgier’ down-the-line video interview
Shaky camerawork and dodgy sound quality used to be the speciality of websites like Vice News. How times have changed. Desperate to boost their dismal ratings, it seems producers on Victoria Derbyshire’s BBC2 news show also want a piece of the gonzo action. When they needed a report from Tunisia in the wake of last week’s beach terrorist attack the BBC’s phalanx of experienced camera crews on site were happy to oblige with a high-quality package. They were astonished to be told their services were not required ... because the Derbyshire team preferred a down-the-line Skype interview. Apparently they thought it would look “edgier”.
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- Monkey
Rock’n’Roll America: behind the music that changed everything
10 hours ago
Another winner from the BBC4 music doc machine shows the real roots of the genre that bestrode the world for decades
Was I the only child of my generation who watched the broad, laugh-tracked 1950s-set family sitcom Happy Days and assumed it to be a portrait of contemporary American life? The Milwaukee teenagers in baseball jackets genuflecting to a greaser called The Fonz in a milk bar while the catchy theme tune sang of “rockin’ and rollin’ all week long”? I thought America was still like that in the 1970s.
Such is the abiding mythic iconography of the birthplace of rock’n’roll. A new three-part doc Rock’n’Roll America plots how this image of hot rods and pompadours conquered the world under Eisenhower and refused to go home. Forged on the well-worn BBC Music docs anvil, archive footage of jitterbugging delinquents saying “Cool, daddy!” illuminates bronchial testimony from »
- Andrew Collins
Wet Hot American Summer is back – but did it typecast its comedy all-stars?
11 hours ago
Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Janeane Garofalo … Netflix’s new show reunites the cast of the 2001 sleeper hit – not everyone has moved on
How did a movie starring Amy Poehler and Bradley Cooper take just $300,000 at the box office? Hard to believe now, but when Wet Hot American Summer landed in cinemas in the dead days of 2001, it tanked. Or not so hard to believe...
Related: Wet Hot American Summer: a cult classic reborn on Netflix
Related: Michael Ian Black: 'I don’t have a very good sense of humor'
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- Alan Evans and Nancy Groves
Britain Beneath Your Feet review – ‘it really needed to dig deeper’
12 hours ago
What links a fatberg, the Shard’s foundations, an old oak’s roots and a potash mine? After watching this I’m none the wiser
I’m not sure where to begin with a review of Britain Beneath Your Feet (BBC1). It hopped around all over the place. One minute we were looking under the Shard and asking a structural engineer to confirm that the 300m building really did need foundations 53 metres deep to keep it standing (yes, it does, because it’s standing in clay. Presenter Dallas Campbell threw a clay pot on a wheel to show us how soft clay is. Clay!). The next we were haring off to Yorkshire to look at an underground waterfall. Really, really deep underground! Waterfall! Then it was down to Bristol, then across to London to look at the rivers the cities have covered over to facilitate their sprawl. Rivers! Covered! Sprawl! »
- Lucy Mangan
Friday’s best TV
13 hours ago
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Kate Adie together at last; another Big Brother inmate is booted back into obscurity; Lily Cole investigates how artists deal with having children. Plus: Anne Frank’s stepsister
Before a live audience at the Wales Millennium Centre, veteran BBC journalist Kate Adie interviews the contest’s patron, Kiwi soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. The focus is properly on Te Kanawa’s extraordinary career, from talent-show winner in New Zealand to performing in the great opera houses of the world, but the two women discover that they have more in common than you might think. Previously shown on BBC2 Wales as part of the coverage of the competition. Andrew Mueller
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- Andrew Mueller, Ben Arnold, Ali Catterall, Hannah Verdier, David Stubbs, Phil Harrison, Jonathan Wright
Observer Ethical Awards 2015 winners: Coronation Street
21 hours ago
The popular soap opera, winner of the Film and Television Award in partnership with Bafta, on becoming the cleanest show on TV
“I don’t think we could have got greener cobbles,” says Kieran Roberts, executive producer of Coronation Street, surveying the hallowed ground. When the whole production moved across town to Media City two years ago, 54,000 cobblestones were acquired from derelict Salford streets and upcycled into service on the world’s longest-running soap. And it is that kind of detail that has won the programme the inaugural Ethical Award for Film and Television (with Bafta and the Bafta Albert Consortium, the production industry’s leader on sustainability).
“Relocating to Trafford gave us so many opportunities to look at the way we make our programme,” he says. He’s standing in front of the façade of the Rovers Return – the interior is housed in Studio One, now illuminated by Led lighting, »
- Lucy Siegle
What to do this Fourth of July: a complete cultural guide
23 hours ago
From TV-loving agoraphobes to those looking for brazen shirtless male strippers, this holiday weekend offers plenty for the culturally curious to explore
Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971
It goes a long way to revalorising one of the most misunderstood artists of the last 60 years. Her massive fame, and maybe her heal-the-world rhetoric too, has obscured the groundbreaking contributions she made to the art of the 1960s and beyond. At last, the art world has come round. This show is no guerrilla occupation. It is a belated and jubilant rectification of the historical record, and a victory lap for an artist laughed at for too long.
One of the most alluring parts of Purifoy’s work is the richness of its meaning. Much of it is playful and humorous. He handles social issues with a deft touch – perhaps in the Langston Hughes spirit of “laughing to keep from crying”. And »
- Alex Needham and Lanre Bakare in New York
Rectify: Sundance's soulful contribution to the real-crime TV wave
2 July 2015 10:53 AM, PDT
Rectify doesn’t feel like anything else on television – ‘you have to do work to watch the show, like reading a book or doing a puzzle.’ But it is worth it
True crime has never been as popular: the podcast Serial broke all records, drawing more than 5 million listeners into re-examining the case of Adnan Syed, and listening to the journey presenter Sarah Koenig took with the case and her mission to find the shadow of a doubt.
Quick on Serial’s heels, HBO premiered The Jinx, an interview series with New York real estate scion Robert Durst, which became a must-watch as documentarian Andrew Jarecki found new evidence in murders long linked to Durst. The inevitable confrontation was riveting television, Durst’s body burping in response to the possible validation of his crimes, and then topping that moment, The Jinx team got his possible confession on audio.
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- Elisabeth Donnelly
Hollywood's fatal attraction to TV: why studios are turning to the small screen
2 July 2015 10:33 AM, PDT
Paramount is the latest major studio to reboot its movies as TV series, with the likes of American Gigolo and Shutter Island to get the treatment along with Fatal Attraction
Like Glenn Close rearing out of the bath when you think she can’t possibly have any life left, old movies are increasingly being reanimated in the entertainment industry’s desperate search for content across other platforms. Three months ago Disney’s plans to reboot its venerable animations as live-action films was under the spotlight; now it is the turn of fellow Hollywood studio Paramount to flex its muscles as it ransacks its archive for recyclable properties.
Related: Disney transforms animated classics into live-action films
Related: Todd Haynes's Mildred Pierce: the crystal meth of quality television
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- Andrew Pulver
A part in W1A would be Knockout, theatrical Prince Edward decrees
2 July 2015 10:14 AM, PDT
It feels like only 28 years since the prince’s Grand Knockout Tournament. Surely the BBC show could do with a lift from his comic genius?
An intriguing rumour raises one of the last great questions of British broadcasting: how soon after Knockout is too soon for Prince Edward to be contemplating a return to the media landscape?
According to reports, His Royal Whoness is a fan of the show W1A, and is keen on the idea of a cameo. In some ways this would be an ideal fit – it feels like only 28 years yesterday that his Grand Knockout Tournament showcased the prince’s enduring gift for comedy. It was all there: Meat Loaf grappling with Chris de Burgh, Sheena Easton being pelted with rubber hams by George Lazenby, John Travolta dressed as a giant leek. John Travolta kissing Viv Richards (deal with it, cricket; it happened).
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- Marina Hyde
Val Doonican obituary
2 July 2015 8:16 AM, PDT
Singer who entertained viewers for many years as the easygoing host of his own TV show
The entertainer Val Doonican, who has died aged 88, had a string of middle-of-the-road hits and was at the heart of family weekend television viewing in the 1960s and 70s. With an easygoing, homely charm that enchanted middle England, he sang and played through two decades of his own TV show and more than 60 years in show business.
Behind the scenes a perfectionist who knew his limitations but always aimed to be “the best Val Doonican possible”, he radiated ease and relaxation. His most famous prop, the rocking chair in which he swayed almost sleepily as he accompanied himself on the guitar, was not a calculated gimmick, but came about by accident. On a show in which he was due to sing early in his career was a young singing/guitar-playing nun. The producer suggested »
- Dennis Barker
Clocking Off box set review – ‘shocking tales of ordinary people with dark secrets’
2 July 2015 8:05 AM, PDT
Set in a Manchester bed linen factory, Paul Abbott’s dramas deal with infidelity, rape and racism – and there’s no guarantee of a happy ending
When Clocking Off started its run on the BBC back in 2000, it quickly established itself as not just your bog-standard 9pm drama. Paul Abbott, who had paid his dues on Coronation Street and Cracker, created an ensemble cast of characters whose stories became more twisted with every scene.
Theirs are tales of ordinary people with complicated lives and dark secrets, set against the mundane backdrop of a Manchester bed linen factory, Mackintosh Textiles. It’s a place where real life is more shocking than the participants of any gossip-hungry tea break could ever imagine. Although the story arc unfolds week by week, each episode stands alone with stars such as Sarah Lancashire, Philip Glenister and Lesley Sharp taking it in turns to inhabit centre stage. »
- Hannah Verdier
This New Noise: The Extraordinary Birth and Troubled Life of the BBC – review
2 July 2015 8:00 AM, PDT
An inspirational and informative account of the early days of the BBC recalls the optimistic, fearless spirit of its pioneers
When John Reith, the first director general of the BBC, was interviewing candidates for the post of editor of the Listener magazine in 1929, his opening question was: “Do you accept the fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ?” It seems a fair bet that he wouldn’t have approved of much of the corporation’s more recent output. Even so, his lofty aim that the broadcaster should seek to “inform, educate and entertain”, that it should be a “guide, philosopher and friend” to the audience, is remarkably still discernible in the vast empire that was built on his one true foundation.
Reith arrived at the British Broadcasting Company, as it then was, in 1922, when there were just four employees; now there are 21,000, a quarter of them journalists. With this growth has come a transformation of the BBC, »
- Alwyn W Turner
Wet Hot American Summer – First Day of Camp: first look trailer
2 July 2015 7:47 AM, PDT
Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks return in a new prequel to the cult classic on Netflix, with guests including Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm and Jason Schwartzman
Related: Wet Hot American Summer: a cult classic reborn on Netflix
Related: New on Netflix in July: Wet Hot American Summer, Chris Tucker Live and BoJack Horseman S2
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- Guardian TV
135,000 people apply to be cast away on next series of The Island
2 July 2015 7:45 AM, PDT
Despite accusations of fakery and cruelty against the Channel 4 show, killing pigs, eating leaves and meeting Bear Grylls proves a hugely attractive proposition
When Robinson Crusoe found himself shipwrecked on a desert island he gave in to a fit of despair.
But it seems that nowadays many of us love nothing more than the idea of being stranded in a tropical hellhole.
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- Alasdair Glennie
Show me the bunny! Fatal Attraction is being turned into a TV show
2 July 2015 6:39 AM, PDT
The movie that seemed to capture – negatively – 80s society has been commissioned as a TV drama by Fox. But is a story about a guy having huge regrets about an affair enough to sustain a series?
Alex Forrest is about to rise up out of the bath again. In another example of old movies being reborn as TV shows, Fox has commissioned a series based on Fatal Attraction, the 1987 thriller starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.
Details about the reboot are currently sketchy, although Deadline went out on a limb when it broke the news by reporting that it “understands the reimagining will explore how a married man’s indiscretion comes back to haunt him”.
Related: Glenn Close says sorry for her portrayal of mental illness in Fatal Attraction
Related: The Affair is compelling television - but will we ever get the truth?
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- Jack Seale
UK TV drama budgets 'slashed by 44% in six years'
2 July 2015 5:05 AM, PDT
Ofcom research finds BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have turned away from genre due to costs and shift of viewers away from live TV to catchup services
UK television drama budgets have been slashed by almost half in the past seven years, Ofcom has said.
Despite the recent success of high-profile, big-budget dramas such as Sherlock, Downton Abbey and Doctor Who, overall spending on the genre has fallen dramatically as UK channels try to save money.
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- Alasdair Glennie
New on Netflix in July: Wet Hot American Summer, Chris Tucker Live and BoJack Horseman S2
2 July 2015 4:28 AM, PDT
The cult summer-camp film starring Janeane Garofolo, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler returns as a TV series, there’s a second season of BoJack Horseman and films including A Most Wanted Man and The World’s End
Wet Hot American Summer 31 July
Related: Wet Hot American Summer: a cult classic reborn on Netflix
Related: New on Amazon Prime in July: Extant S2, Arrow S2, '71 and Paddington
Related: Trailer watch: BoJack Horseman, season two
Related: Philip Seymour Hoffman 'found the world too much,' says Le Carré
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- Richard Vine
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