TV tonight: Karen Gillan and Hugh Bonneville go head to head in an intense finale
TV tonight
TV tonight: learn about the art of Swedish death cleaning
June 2024
Observer TV reviews
The week in TV: Douglas Is Cancelled; The Bear; Suranne Jones: Investigating Witch Trials; BBC Prime Ministerial Debate – review
TV review
Douglas Is Cancelled review – you might hate this show for daring to exist
The watcher
Douglas Is Cancelled: Hugh Bonneville’s culture war show is skin-crawling
‘And today’s news is … I’m cancelled’: Hugh Bonneville, Alex Kingston and Steven Moffat on their cancel comedy
March 2024
The Garrick Club’s notable members – in pictures
The Garrick Club is likely to hold a vote this year on changing its rules to allow female members. A Guardian investigation into those who will help decide the issue reveals a host of people in public life among its members
December 2023
Sky defends slavery inheritance show from accusations of tone-deafness
Channel says Forty Acres, comedy drama about slavery inheritance from W1A team, is not comedy about slavery
May 2023
Coronation Concert review – a cobbled-together bunch of B-listers
With all respect to Olly Murs and Nicole Scherzinger, true star power was lacking at this well-performed celebration for King Charles III – drones and Muppets were the highlights instead
March 2023
Mummies review – nonsense kiddie-flick should be avoided like a plague of locusts
Unpleasant to look at, with a chatbot-level script and phoned-in voiceovers, film-makers can’t get away with shovelling out this kind of thing
January 2023
Bank of Dave review – underdog story of an everyman v Eton poshos
Rory Kinnear is brilliant in this warming comedy about a Burnley businessman who took on London’s elite and won
October 2022
Playing Under the Piano by Hugh Bonneville – note-perfect self-deprecation
The Downton star is happy to be the butt of his own jokes in this tremendously entertaining account of the ups and downs of his career
September 2022
Down with the rich! Class rage fuels new wave of ‘us v them’ films and plays
From Triangle of Sadness and Parasite to The Maid, audiences are revelling tales of inter-class violence that draw on growing discontent at inequality
August 2022
I Came By review – Hugh Bonneville gets nasty in silly Netflix thriller
The Downton Abbey star plays a believably sinister villain in an otherwise underwhelming tale of a judge with a horrific secret in his basement
April 2022
Downton Abbey: A New Era review – cheerfully risible second helping of snobby melodrama
The second – and hopefully last – film spun off from Julian Fellowes’s successful TV series is as hammy, silly, and undeniably entertaining as ever
April 2021
Downton Abbey film sequel set for Christmas 2021 release
A followup to the 2019 film is currently in production, with Dominic West, Hugh Dancy and Laura Haddock joining returning cast members
February 2021
To Olivia review – a glib exploration of Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal's grief
Keeley Hawkes and Hugh Bonneville are decent as the actor and children’s author whose daughter died aged seven, but there is no real howl of pain
October 2020
Scenes of a Sexual Nature review – hit-and-miss Hampstead romcom
Ewan McGregor, Tom Hardy and Sophie Okonedo are among the big names doing small roles in this mostly pleasant portmanteau film from 2006
July 2020
Lockdown culture
Chichester Festival theatre boss to join musical stars in outdoor concert
Daniel Evans will take to the stage with Omid Djalili, Giles Terera and Gabrielle Brooks in summer event previewing postponed South Pacific
September 2019
Downton Abbey review – mostly harmless TV spin-off
Familiar comforts abound in a big screen outing for the Crawleys and staff
