12 April '11

“This fascinating documentary made it dispiritingly clear that the common man and woman, whether heroic or not, never gets to spend too long in Utopia. Great social initiatives are crafted by politicians – in this instance Lord Salisbury, who in 1883 invited a Royal Commission to look into the housing of the working classes – and later destroyed by them.”
Brian Viner, The Independent

“Intelligent and thoughtful though this film was as a piece of social history, it ultimately left too many bodies buried, too many questions unanswered. Where’s Boyd when you need him?”
John Crace, The Guardian

“There were times when this documentary felt a little like an extended advertisement for adoption, not that many of us would be good or brave enough to take on Maisie, whose fierce, violent tantrums were mainly directed at Sue, for the sad, simple reason that it had always been mother figures who, by Maisie’s perception, had let her down.”
Brian Viner, The Independent

“This chilling documentary showed how wrong-way-round so much of Maisie’s life had been. At the age of 8 she needed to be treated like a toddler sometimes, yet she had the violent fury and spaced-out mien of an exhausted middle-ager.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

“Every episode is like a perfect little Woody Allen movie, with Jason Schwartzman almost good enough as fretful writer and Allen-alike Jonathan Ames to stop his scenes with the glorious Ted Danson, playing his boss George, from being stolen from under his nose. Almost.”
Brian Viner, The Independent

 Waking the Dead, BBC1

“None of them seemed particularly bothered that their other colleague, Sarah, hadn’t been able to join them as she’d been topped by Nicholson. But then she’d never really been one of the gang. Life will be a lot duller without them.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“It was slickly produced, with its eerie, grainy flashbacks, and brave enough to claim one of its own scalps — poor Sarah, brought in for the final series only to end up a pale, pretty corpse.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

“Ultimately, Edward’s size and appearance were far from being the most shocking things we’ve seen in this series but his story was surely one of the saddest.”
Matt Baylis, The Express