In the UK: Wednesdays, 9pm, ITV1

What's that? Is it the sound of something precious and beautiful being trampled underfoot by philistines and idiots?

Erm, no. Surprisingly, it's not and we have yet another miracle of the post-Grade age: an ITV1 primetime drama that doesn't suck, doesn't insult the intelligence and actually makes you hunger for more.

Any more of this and it'll almost become ordinary, expected even, that ITV1 dramas won't make you feel like you've been hit on the head by a six-pack of Kestrels on a night out in Malia.

Anyway, it is a truth, universally acknowledged, that all women of a certain temperament love Pride and Prejudice, particularly that bit with Colin Firth in the water. Many are the women who know it almost word for word; and no doubt there are many who wish they could be in it, particularly during that bit with Colin Firth in the water.

So Lost in Austen is quite a clever idea, even if sounds a bit daft at first: what would happen if somehow you ended up in the novel Pride and Prejudice, having taken Elizabeth Bennet's place. You're a big fan, you know what's supposed to happen, who's supposed to end up with whom and how.

But what if you ballsed it all up?

Continue reading "Review: Lost in Austen 1x1"

Read other posts about: James Bond

Today's Joanna Page is Very Annie Mary, a little movie set in Wales that features just about every Welsh actor in existence. It stars Rachel Griffiths, an Australian actress who impressed everyone right up until she joined the cast of Brothers and Sisters, as Annie Mary, the frustrated (in every sense) daughter of Pavarotti-impersonating baker Jonathan Pryce. 

She wants to help her best friend, the seriously ill 16-year-old Bethan Bevan, get to Disneyland and singing in a talent contest might be the only way to get the money. And despite being 22 at the time, Joanna Page played that sick teenager.

Continue reading "Today's Joanna Page: Very Annie Mary"

Read other posts about: Gavin and Stacey

Where: Duke of York's Theatre, St Martin's Lane, London
When: 7.45pm Mondays-Saturdays, 3pm matinees on Thursdays and Saturdays. Runs for 10 weeks from the 15th July 2008
How long: One and half hours without interval
How much: £15-£47.50 (includes £1 restoration levy)
Tickets from: 0870 060 6623 (+£3), Ticketmaster (+£3) or www.theambassadors.com (-£1.50/ticket on top three price bands)

Yes, I'm back. It's me, “Easily swayed into going to the theatre by famous TV casts” man. How you doing?

This time, I went to see Catherine Tate (Doctor Who, The Catherine Tate Show), Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd) and Francesca Annis (Between The Lines, Dune and Krull - she's been in better stuff, too, but the last two amused me) in some sort of play or something about teachers behaving badly.

Continue reading "Review: Under the Blue Sky"

Read other posts about: The IT Crowd

In the US: Sundays, AMC, 10pm/9c
In the UK: Acquired by BBC4 to air in 2009

Mad Men was something of a surprise for everyone when its first season arrived. Not only was it made by AMC, a network not really known for much – certainly not original dramas – it was very good indeed.

A period piece about Madison Avenue advertising men of the early 60s, it was stylish, clever and eye-opening, and spent considerable time demonstrating how much attitudes to just about everything have changed.

Unsurprisingly, it won a whole raft of awards. Now, here comes the second season, with much to prove. Yet set two years on, it's appropriately relaxed and cool – it has nothing to prove.

Continue reading "Review: Mad Men 2x1"

Read other posts about: Mad Men

Christmas is a time traditionally associated with ghost stories. I don't know why that is - maybe it's a pagan hangover, since “let's celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ by scaring each other silly” doesn't strike me as a particularly coherent Christian concept.

Probably the most famous teller of Christmas ghost stories is MR James, the Cambridge don who used to gather friends and students round at Christmas and scare them silly with tales such as Whistle and I'll Come To You, A Warning to the Curious, The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral and Lost Hearts. These were eventually collected into various omnibuses and back in the 60s and 70s, the BBC started adapting the stories, airing a new tale at Christmas.

Initially, just one-offs, the strand eventually was formalised as A Ghost Story for Christmas, with Rosemary Hill as producer and Lawrence Gordon Clark as director. Sticking with James for the first few years, Hill strayed in 1975, getting Andrew Davies to adapt Charles Dickens' The Signalman for the strand. She then chose to forego literary sources altogether and began commissioning original stories instead.

The first of these was Clive Exton's Stigma (which I might deal with at a later time, if you're lucky), but for reasons known only to the Beeb, the strand concluded with John Bowen's The Ice House in 1978. Although BBC2 and BBC4 have repeated many of the episodes and the BFI have released some on DVD, The Ice House has never been repeated. It's a Lost Gem.

Continue reading "Lost Gems: The Ice House"

In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, A&E

A&E has something of a thing for Benjamin Bratt at the moment. As well as starring in the colossally expensive The Andromeda Strain remake, he's now starring in the not-as-expensive-as-its-own-marketing-campaign The Cleaner.

Yep, in an effort to get away from being known as the “channel that likes to show Sopranos re-runs”, A&E is spending up to $8 million just on promoting The Cleaner, one of its first original drama series in a very long time.

Building on the dark and gritty image the network already has, The Cleaner explores the world of addiction, whether it's addiction to drugs, gambling, sex or alcohol. Bratt, in a role “inspired” by reality, plays William Banks, a man who attempts to get over his past heroin addiction by weaning others off their addictions.

Unfortunately, “inspired” seems to mean “converted into something a bit like every other television series you've ever seen - and about as realistic”.

Continue reading "Review: The Cleaner 1x1"