The Guardian - TV & Radio (23 hours ago)
As he stars alongside Sheridan Smith as a casino boss on the take, the actor talks about leaving school with no qualifications, playing vile dads – and why he's eager to circulate the This Is England reunion rumourMichael Socha is about to jump on a train to Wales. The impressively bushy beard he's got is for his role in The Witch House, a...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (23 hours ago)
The actor slides into the hot seat on The Assembly. Plus: an Australian dating series for people who are scared of dating. Here's what to watch this evening10.05pm, ITV1Stephen Fry was asked whether there was "anything he wouldn't do for money”. Lenny Henry fielded questions about racism and discovering his uncle is his biological father. Now,...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A day ago)
Amol Rajan was harsh, Miriam Margolyes was thoroughly charming – and the teens watching will have been screaming at the screen. Last year's Christ's College captain lets rip on this year's tense set-toA new chapter in the history of Anglo-Scottish rivalry has been written with the broadcast of this year's University Challenge final. After 36...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
Like Romeo and Juliet meets a gangster thriller, Charlotte Regan's series is sumptuously shot with an incredible payoff – plus the most visually stunning scene of self-pleasure you will ever seeShannon is 22. Her dad is a fearsome gangster. Her mum is an uncanny amalgamation of a Stepford and mob wife. Her brother's a computer nerd; her gran is a...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
The comedians are back with a fifth series of their Weirdo's Book Club. Plus, a fascinating look into some stories filed away in America's National ArchivesIf IRL book clubs can feel a little twee (why is there always someone who hasn't finished the book?!) Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd's podcast might be a better way to get your lit fix. Season...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
Will Shannon and Arran's lust at first sight win over their rival crime families? Plus: how the tragedy of Chernobyl unfolded. Here's what to watch this evening9pm, BBC OneThis retelling of Romeo and Juliet from Charlotte Regan – director of hit indie film Scrapper – is set in modern-day Scotland. Sparks fly at a train station when yearning...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
The team behind this adult animation is unbelievably stellar – Jason Schwartzman, John Waters, Whoopi Goldberg, Amy Sedaris … Sadly, it's so awful it's hard to even express its direnessWe need to talk about Kevin. We need to surround ourselves with soothing furnishings and sturdy stress toys and – deep breaths, everyone – discuss how and...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
Don't come to this Canadian show looking for prestige drama. But it is a highly entertaining tale featuring numerous holdalls of cocaine – and Driver having loads of fun with English accentsTelevision drama loves border country: places hovering between one identity and another, defined by comings and goings, with forbidden bounty forever out of...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
It has long been soured by scandal, but MasterChef is back with new judges – and they don't want anyone to have a bad time. Grace Dent and Anna Haugh talk about eating like T rexes and why they don't think about the show's pastGrace Dent grew up with MasterChef. She and her dad would watch it together at home in Carlisle. "We used to laugh...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
Gadd and Jamie Bell are so frank they're almost feral in a show so violent you'll think you can taste blood in your mouth. This man can hit a nerve like no other Part of the thrill of Baby Reindeer was the feeling of watching the birth of a monster. Comedians starring in their first scripted drama tend to base their characters gently on themselves,...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
It seems that even the Traitors host can't save the ailing chatshow format. As her series ends, it's hard not to feel that she never quite got out of Graham Norton's shadowSix weeks ago, before Claudia Winkleman launched her BBC One Friday night chatshow, media profiles regularly referenced her "Midas touch” with TV formats. She had left one...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
Richard Gadd's first show since Baby Reindeer is just as compellingly horrible – and you didn't think Netflix was done with Hawkins, did you?Richard Gadd's first TV project since Baby Reindeer is a visceral drama likely to have a similar impact. Half Man is fictional but its exploration of agonised youth still packs a mighty punch. Playing out...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell go on a magical quest to save their heartbroken souls. And before its return this summer, go back to the start of the super-fun franchise that gave the world the Minions Kogonada's beguiling fable pushes two damaged people together through a fantastical meet-cute, then traces their fraught quest for peace of mind....
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
The naturalist revisits the family of apes he had a goosebump-inducingly famous encounter with 50 years ago. You'll find yourself overcome with aweThe most famous sequence in all of wildlife film-making happened 48 years ago. During the filming of Life on Earth – the groundbreaking BBC show that set the blueprint of nature programming as we know...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 days ago)
This royalist-pleasing hagiography is highly basic – and skims rapidly over the darker side of the crown. If you've seen The Crown, you know it all alreadyWhenever I see a headline about "the queen” cutting a ribbon for the Scouts or some hospital, I momentarily think Elizabeth II has risen from the dead. It takes me, on average, 45 seconds to...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (6 days ago)
From people marrying digital companions to CEOs excited about how people whose jobs are replaced can 'adapt', this is terrifying watching. But Perry is the perfect hostThere is a fun game you can play while watching Grayson Perry Has Seen the Future, the two-part documentary presented by the artist on the subject of artificial intelligence, its...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
The star powerfully plays the mum to Elle Fanning's cash-strapped single mother and OnlyFans creator in this charming schmaltzfest – which could have been so much moreMargo's Got Money Troubles first gives us the why. Margo's got money troubles because Margo got pregnant. Margo got pregnant because she is so young, and she thought her English...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
The chef spies on failing eateries then visits them at night to unearth their secrets – with results that are quite often nauseating … and yet surprisingly emotionalIt's 1.07am in Washington DC, and Gordon Ramsay is in a baseball cap, driving. His destination: Parthenon, once a thriving neighbourhood joint where White House power-brokers ate...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
What a relief that this is the end for Sam Levison's grim drama. A show which was once blackly funny is now humourless torture pornTo say that season three of Euphoria is long-awaited would be something of an understatement. HBO's high school drama debuted in 2019, when it garnered a fanfare of attention with its heady mix of grinding trauma,...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
How to Fail's Elizabeth Day and historian Dan Jones dissect the mistakes of Richard III and Anne Boleyn. Plus, Kylie Jenner lets her guard down to Kid CudiHow to Fail's Elizabeth Day teams up with historian Dan Jones for this new series about screw-ups from times gone by. Fast forward through the university reunion (they were at Cambridge together)...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
The chef uses surveillance to find out which restaurants desperately need his help. Plus: the search for the truth in The Copenhagen Test. Here's what to watch this evening10pm, Channel 4In a series first shown in the US last year, chef Ramsay is back with his brand of brutal home truths on how to save struggling restaurants. This time, he is using...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
As ordinary people express their feelings for loved ones by singing in public, not even Alison Hammond can make sense of it all. It begs the question: what exactly is this cack? It's a rainy afternoon in Liverpool and Alison Hammond is describing her latest TV series while standing outside a branch of NatWest. "We're inviting extraordinary people...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
The two comedians tour the world in search of overpriced attractions, dodgy food – and trips you really wouldn't want to go onThe last thing the world needs is another celebrity travelogue. You have to assume that the genre that gave us Coastal Railways with Julie Walters and Rob Brydon's Honky Tonk Road Trip is commissioned by drawing names and...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (A week ago)
Fanning is a young single mother who makes adult content in this hilarious series. It is smart, sexy and bold – and Pfeiffer is unmissable as her ex-Hooters-waitress motherI promise, it's the title that drew me in. Margo's Got Money Troubles is a new Apple TV show (out Wednesday), starring Elle Fanning as a single mum who becomes an OnlyFans...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder are TV's funniest and nastiest odd-couple in this Emmy-winning smash hit. But co-creator and star Paul W Downs discusses why things are a lot sunnier and sillier for the pair in its final seriesIt hit the Vegas Strip running. Since it crashed on to our screens in 2021, Hacks has been a critical darling. This tale of...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
Will artificial intelligence save us or destroy us? According to a growing band of thriller scriptwriters, we should be very afraid indeedMaybe the "H” in Line Of Duty will turn out to stand for "hard drive”? After all, AI has become TV's go-to villain, as proven once again in last week's penultimate episode of BBC stablemate The Capture....
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
This revival does the impossible: it's effortlessly funny and refreshing, and Bryan Cranston's performance is unmissable. They have to make moreAt this point, Bryan Cranston is firmly entrenched as one of the world's finest actors. He has seven Emmys, two Tonys and a Golden Globe to his name. History, quite rightly, will remember him as one of the...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
Lower those expectations, Succession fans. The star plays a scientist who shrinks his wife (Elizabeth Banks) to 6in tall, in a screwball sitcom that should have been so much better I wonder what it's like to be the go-to actor whenever anyone needs a morally questionable, sappy-looking, fundamentally weak character to play the whipped dog to...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
Elle Fanning stars as a student and single mom who turns to OnlyFans to raise cash, plus a tense, clever new season of Beef pitches two sets of couples against one anotherMargo's English tutor thinks she's Harvard material. If only he wasn't using this assessment to flatter her into bed. When, with grim predictability, he leaves her literally...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
The foreign affairs series delves into Africa's burgeoning entertainment industry. Plus: a new generation of big cats. Here's what to watch this evening7.30pm, Channel 4There's a reason why this Friday evening buzzkill of a documentary strand is approaching its 50th season: it does a brilliant job of finding essential, often bleak stories from...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling make an unlikely couple in Harry Lighton's gay biker drama. Plus: an amiable thief finds romance while hiding out in a toy storeLove stories come in all shapes and sizes. Harry Lighton sets his provocative, witty debut film in the world of BDSM. Harry Melling stars as introverted traffic warden – and...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
Crime gangs, astonishing visual effects, the first acting role of rapper Loyle Carner … BBC drama Mint takes the plot of Romeo & Juliet and creates something uniqueMint, the new drama from Charlotte Regan, is so simple in concept it's almost hard to make sense of. It's a story of impossible love, between two people whose families are bitter...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
He plays a pastor on the run from a gang in this dysfunctional family sitcom. The cast is ace, with Taylor Ortega as the hilarious sister – and it has a blindsiding twist There are, broadly speaking, two types of television shows: the ones that make stars and the ones made by stars. The former includes the ensemble productions that turn unknowns...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
A group of neurodivergent and disabled young adults ask Stephen Fry the tough questions most others don't dare to – and it makes for a truly liberating experience As opening questions in celebrity interviews go, it's a bold one. You can't imagine Norton, Ross or Winkleman beginning with it. But the latest guest on The Assembly, Stephen Fry, is...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
The star returns as Ian Fletcher in this mockumentary from the makers of Twenty Twelve. But for every funny moment, there is a slightly off gag – and some truly woeful onesIt's a Monday morning in Miami and Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) is in a meeting. The meeting has been set up to action another meeting, the outcome of which...
ReadThe Guardian - TV & Radio (2 weeks ago)
The star's fame, reckoning and resurrection are examined in this nuanced three-parter. It speaks to those who were closest to Jackson but can a story of such wild extremes really be told from the middle ground?In what way, exactly, is Michael Jackson an "American tragedy”? Does the tragedy to which the title of this three-part BBC documentary...
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