celticman's blog

Dr Pamela Cox talks us through what it was like to be a servant during the industrial revolution. The good servant had to be invisible, omnipotent, omniscient and know his or her place. The master was always right, even when he was wrong. It wasn’t just the aristocracy that had servants. The growth in industry led to an affluent middle class. To avoid the drudgery of housework and to retain any degree of social status they too had to employ...

Directed and written by Ferzan Ozpeteck. BBC 4 I’m the kind of saddo that watches most of his programmes on BBC 4. I started with Wallander and became something of a Wallander junkie. I even watched the British attempts. Then there was the twenty hours of The Killing. Yeh, I was transfixed by every episode. The only thing that could run it close is the recent episodes of The Accused (on BBC 1) which have been the best thing on telly this year...

Let’s try and sell this idea. You get a guy that's like an American gangster. I’m thinking Robert de Niro here, but someone a lot cheaper. So we get Steven Van Zandt. We put him in the witness protection programme, but we don’t send him to Detroit or New Jersey, we send him to Lilyhammer. Get it. That’s in Norway. It’s not a gangster in New York. It’s a gangster in Lilyhammer. Not surprising the locals don’t understand him. They speak Norwegian...

I like Jimmy McGovern. I like The Accused. His production company creates a drama and sells it to BBC. They give it a prime spot. Prime billing. I watched the last series. It’s formulaic. Someone’s ‘The Accused’ and the first question that needs to be answered is who? The flip side of this is who is the non-Accussed? Because the dead don’t make good witnesses it’s usually the guy or girl that has been seen in the opening scenes, but is no longer...

The Bank Job (2008) Film 4 is a Jason Statham film, which means it’s going to be bad. As bad as as a Steve Seagal? As bad as a Schwzenegger or any of those other kung-fu kind of action heroes –I’m thinking Van Damme, Vin Diesel and all the other white Van lads- that are so bad they are actually quite good? Well it wasn’t too bad, which says nothing at all. I’m not going to spoil the film by telling you the story. Most Stathan films are just one...

When’s a secret not a secret? When you’ve got a film crew following you around. David and Miriam Lapp risk excommunication from the Old Order Amish faith in Pennsylvania. There’s a stricture in forbidding photography. There’s a stricture against having a phone in the house, but having one in a shack outside, or in the garage, is acceptable. The garage isn’t a place where the car is kept. That’s where the horses are kept that pull those wheeled...

Line of Duty is the best drama on telly. The climax of this five part drama, five hours of google-eyed viewing is on BBC 2 tonight. Written by Jed Mercurio of Cardiac Arrest fame, it’s as taut and tight as you’d expect from such a veteran. If you really want to know what Mercurio is about then a good start would be his novel Bodies, and as a former doctor he knows where they are buried. Bodies follows an intern through his brutal initiation into...

Wallander BBC 1 9pm. Yeh, I know. This isn’t the real Wallander. The BBC 4 Wallander that looked like an ex-football player, all jowly and gone to seed, with a bit of a drink problem, a bit of a women problem, a bit of a life problem. But on the bright side he did have a dog Jussy and some nice Scandinavian scenery. Kenneth Brannagh has a dog named Jussy and he has the nice Scandinavian scenery. There’s also lots of international production...

James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) Channel 4. It’s a bit like Titanic. First the big screen film, in this case with the added bonus of 3D, and then the video (will that word become obsolete?) the download and now it’s scrapping around the bottom of the channel on 4. The good thing is I haven’t seen it. I have seen parts of it. There was a bit of Dances with Wolves, a bit of Hiawatha, a bit of Apocalypse Now and a bit of Disney fairy tale icing with...

My Murder BBC 3 written by Levi David Addal is a factional account of how a sixteen year old boy was set up by his fifteen year old girlfriend and stabbed to death. The dramatization begins and ends with his death. In between we learn Shakilus Townsend (played by John Boyega) or Shakky is just out of prison or youth borstal and determined to start a new life, go to college and make something of himself. It’s not easy. He refuses to recognize...