22 Nov '11

“The documentary material far outweighed the dramatised sequences, but you were still left with a sense that what it really wanted to be was a play; a clever, Michael Frayn sort of affair, in which the intellectual biography was raided for metaphors for the life.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“It was the latest in a distinguished line of programmes aimed at rehabilitating the reputation of one of Britain’s finest minds. As rehabilitation, it worked well, highlighting both the inhumanity with which he was treated and the importance of his pioneering work in artificial intelligence and morphogenesis.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“The reconstructions were sumptuous period pieces, enticing us into the past with vintage music, and into Turing’s viewpoint with scenes richly scripted from his letters and diaries.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

“Itwas a bit like Four Lions without laughter to ease the discomfort – a sad account of a troubled teenager looking for somewhere to belong, and saddest of all when his mother was on screen. He never got to set off his bomb, but he’d blown up her life.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Ibrahim’s story wasn’t one of great intrigue; there was no recruitment to a terrorist cell nor training camps in Pakistan. Rather, he openly telegraphed his intentions to almost everyone with whom he came in contact: al-Qaida wouldn’t have touched him with a barge-pole.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“It is basically Frozen Planet without David Attenborough. Patrolling our way along the edge of the Arctic, I could have sworn I saw the very same polar bears, seals and whales trying to kill one another and doing the same slow-motion manoeuvres they had been doing last week over on the BBC.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“No outsider would have the right to peer into this family and hand out one scrap of blame to anyone for anything but we were left wondering why they’d volunteered to tell their story on camera. If it helped then we are delighted but it didn’t seem to.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“First, what a fascinating true story to uncover. Second, credit to the producer/director Elizabeth Stopford and editor Alex Fry for weaving it together so chillingly.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

“If you listen closely to what the presenters are saying as they unveil this groundbreaking  discovery and this astonishing innovation, it’s more full of “coulds” and “maybes” than an election manifesto.”
Matt Baylis, The Express