Death is a funny thing. It creeps up on us all, or surprises us if we are unlucky (or lucky, depending on the circumstances). For a writer, especially a self-confessed solipsist such as Clive James, the…
At 6.30pm tonight, Scotland will lay down a milestone in one of the key debates in television: will local television become a successful and profitable part of the UK’s media scene or remain one politician’s…
If you’re a fan of the American reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race, currently airing on Foxtel’s Lifestyle You channel in Australia, you’re likely aware of the ongoing storm that has surged around how…
Y Gwyll, the Welsh title of the recent BBC drama Hinterland, translates as “The Dusk”: perhaps programmers were worried that viewers would mistake it for Twilight? Vampires and zombies certainly feature…
In the last year there’s been a resurgence of media engagement with the Suffragettes, the most militant wing of the first wave feminist movement between 1890 and 1919. It began with two television programmes…
Although awards shows are all about the excitement of the moment – that’s why they’re live – this year’s Bafta television crop is more about continuity than revolution. There was mild controversy because…
With the centenary commemorations continuing, all things World War I have been filling our screens, pages and radio waves. The latest of these was the BBC’s The Crimson Field, a drama set in a field hospital…
Modern Family, ABC’s sitcom juggernaut, is adept at capturing the zeitgeist without ruffling too many feathers. Unashamedly conservative in its family-sitcom structure, it also excels at moments of quiet…
Chris Lilley has long been a high maintenance love object. Last night, the first episode of Jonah From Tonga was broadcast on ABC1. Critics have had an easy time finding humour in socially “well-placed…
What happens when an actor who has built an amazing persona is called upon to reveal a truer self? When Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, discards his right-wing talk show host persona and takes…
Due to Australia’s small population and high concentration of few media voices, public broadcasters play a pivotal role in shaping the media ecosystem and cultural landscape. With the ABC and SBS under…
The recent torrent of complaints about the “inaudible dialogue” in the BBC’s adaptation of Daphne de Maurier’s Jamaica Inn have prompted a debate about actors’ speech. The cause of the problem was variously…
News that a feature film of the BBC TV comedy series Dad’s Army is to be made – starring Bill Nighy and Toby Jones – has garnered a mixed response. The Daily Telegraph has questioned whether the film is…
This year the world’s most popular superhero, Batman, celebrates his 75th birthday. From inauspicious beginnings in a six-page comic to the transmedia anchor of one of the world’s largest media conglomerates…
People often ask me why I study television dialogue. Behind such a question sometimes lie deep-seated assumptions about the low value of popular culture. Such underlying assumptions can extend not just…
“Movies will never die”, writes James Wolcott in Prime Time’s Graduation, his influential 2012 essay for Vanity Fair: But TV is where the action is, the addiction forged, the dream machine operating on…
As has become standard practice for any contemporary television production, the seventh and final season of Mad Men – AMC’s 1960s period drama – has been preceded by a torrent of promotional material…
We’ve seen the launch of BBC1’s new WW1 drama The Crimson Field, as well as the return of Game of Thrones to our screens. So whether it’s the field of the Somme or the far flung landcape of Westeros, the…
Popular television series rely on a great many factors for their success. Among these is the not-often-celebrated task of integrating screen pace and performance. When that works the story flows effortlessly…
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season four, episode one. When we first met Charles Dance’s Tywin Lannister back in season one he was gutting a stag – a none-too-subtle…