2. Vanity Fair Gwyneth Hughes “Vanity Fair is a big, lavish, funny costume drama about the rollercoaster of people’s lives going right and going wrong, with William Makepeace Thackeray [played by Michael Palin, who starred in Hughes’s 2014 BBC1 drama...
Entrée récemment au service de lady Trentham, une vieille dame égoïste et terriblement snob, Mary se rend à sa première partie de chasse, organisée par sir William. La jeune bonne découvre, ébahie, le fonctionnement de cette demeure régie par le redoutable...
La BBC lançait ces dernières semaines deux nouvelles séries d’époque dont elle a le secret. Des œuvres esthétiquement soignées qui proposent deux manières bien distinctes de porter le costume. L’une avec une histoire originale pertinente, l’autre avec...
Le Caire, au plus fort du Printemps arabe, Jonathan Pine, gérant de nuit d’un hôtel de luxe, reçoit un appel au secours de la sublime Sophie Alekan. Maîtresse du puissant mais dangereux propriétaire de l’hôtel, Sophie détient les preuves d’une vente d’armes...
Broadcasting House The first purpose-built broadcast centre in the UK Designed by G Val Myer and built in 1932, Broadcasting House was the BBC's first purpose-built home for radio broadcasting. It is situated in central London between Oxford Street and...
When an epic new Sherlock image like this appears, you know the game is afoot. And while I have to admit, I haven't quite grasped the overall significance of John and Sherlock sitting in their flooded Baker Street flat, after getting out my digital magnifying...
Women at the BBC Woman's Hour 1946 The early years The BBC employed women from the very start; in fact Reith's first appointment was his personal secretary, Isabel Shields in January 1923. Although the majority of the Company's early female employees...
It isn’t often I find myself identifying with the villain nowadays, but BBC’s 2012 two-part TV movie The Mystery of Edwin Drood had me examining my own past through the lens of this tale by Charles Dickens. This is the last story that Dickens ever wrote...
FX’s Cold War spy thriller The Americans, which returns Wednesday for its third season, benefits from the sort of reverse novelty that made early Mad Men so enchanting: It lets us remember (or imagine) what it was like to live in the days of phone booths,...
The Mystery Of Edwin Drood is a Charles Dickens story about a choirmaster’s obsession with a beautiful young woman. But a different kind of obsession has developed since Dickens last put pen to paper on the novel 142 years ago: How should the story end?...
Alexandra Palace The birthplace of television Alexandra Palace is situated in North London and known around the world as the birthplace of television. In fact it was never owned by the BBC, but in 1935 the Corporation leased the eastern part of the building...
Following the success of Neil Gaiman adaptations Neverwhere and Good Omens (the latter co-written with the late Terry Pratchett), Radio 4 has announced that another of the offbeat author’s books is in the works as a special audio play this winter – Stardust,...
Starz’s American Gods might be one of the most anticipated TV shows since Game of Thrones, thanks to a similarly intense fanbase surrounding the Neil Gaiman novel it’s based on and an incredibly deep cast — which includes (but isn’t limited to) Ian McShane,...
Near the end of the first season of FX’s Cold War spy thriller, The Americans, a Soviet sleeper-cell operative played by Keri Russell has an affair with a man wanted for the murder of an FBI agent. Troves of D.C. police are frantically canvassing the...
And now, for your bank holiday delectation, A Midsummer Night's Dream as you've never seen it before. Former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies brings the Shakespeare comedy to life on BBC1, but who are the major players? Find out more about the cast...
Toby Jones Who does he play? Verloc, a businessman running a seedy sex shop in London’s Soho who is being secretly paid by the Russian embassy to spy on revolutionary groups. Where do I recognise him from? Basically everything. He was in Frost/Nixon,...
Beowulf expert and TV historian Michael Wood has a theory about Anglo-Saxons and television. “We live in a world where there’s a lot of terrifying and up-front violence, a world of Islamic State and horror going on around us,” he says. “That’s partly...
L e 1er janvier 1962, l'écrivain américain Philip K. Dick publiait un roman renfermant le pire cauchemar du monde: une histoire alternative dans laquelle les puissances de l'Axe, le IIIe Reich allemand et le Japon impérial, sortaient vainqueurs de la...
Finally, someone has been brave enough to turn the studio lights on Northern Lights, have a stab at The Subtle Knife and peer into The Amber Spyglass. The BBC have confirmed they are planning to adapt Philip Pullman's wonderful fantasy series His Dark...
"I’ve definitely mellowed,” admits David Walliams, sipping green tea. “I remember, as a student, being furious about loads of things, but as you get older, you become a little more pragmatic. You’re not just railing against the world all the time.” He...
Charlie Higson’s Jekyll and Hyde comes to ITV tonight, and it’s a fun romp through a 1930s-set episodic version of the story with a good cast and some pleasingly dark themes. What it also is, however, is an attempt to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle...
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that each generation receives its own cinematic interpretation of Jane Austen’s most famous love story. So, naturally, when our headstrong Elizabeth Bennet and her gaggle of sisters next appear on screen, they’ll...
What is it? Remember that Hilary Mantel lady? Y'know, the one with the lispy voice and all those book prizes who likes to air her opinions on the royal family? Well, the BBC have decided to turn her two Tudor novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies into...
Hwæt! (Listen up) – Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf is headed to a screen near you. ITV are planning to turn the scourge of secondary school English classrooms into a Game of Thrones-style drama, described in a release as “an epic re-imagining of one of...
As the executive producer of BBC2’s critically-acclaimed Tudor epic Wolf Hall, Colin Callender is well placed to crow about the strength of television drama. The six-part series starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis has attracted rave reviews for its...
