26 Sep '11

“Barack Obama, it turned out, was an emphasised O that modulated into a waving flag, while Adolf Hitler involved a brilliant gestural shorthand that required no translation: lift your right hand, palm down, to your nose and lay the thumb along your top lip. Tip the fingers upwards. Congratulations, you’ve just signed Hitler. If, like me, you were nervous about fluting verbosity, don’t be – it’s learner-slope linguistics, yes, but nicely done for all that.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“There were clips of the young Stephen from A Bit Of Fry And Laurie, even then fascinated with words, and you can’t say he isn’t game as he even took part in a production of Hamlet staged entirely in Klingon, alongside chatting to someone who was raising his son to speak Klingon as his first language.”
Virginia Blackburn, The Express

“You need someone like him for a show like this. Linguistics isn’t natural television material, it needs a wit and a wag and a wordsmith to bring it to life. We go with him to Africa to play with some African children. He meets linguistics professors, evolutionary anthropologists, monkeys, parrots, those deaf people, speakers of Klingon, more children.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“What do you think goes through the Taliban’s heads when they see an Apache coming?” asked an offscreen female voice. “Hopefully a 30-mil bullet,” a pilot replied deadpan. Comic exploitation of ambiguity, you see, which monkeys can’t do.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“This series has just got cleverer and cleverer, although I would warrant that someone involved is a fan of another stunningly inventive series, THe Avenger, way back in the 1960.”
Virginia Blackburn, The Express

“It managed to tackle a very difficult subject, rape and the reality of women’s prisons, with sensitivity and some very fine-acting.”
Virginia BlackBurn, The Express

“Julian Fellowes chose last night to introduce the dullest press baron to have ever lived. Iain Glen’s Sir Richard Carlisle wasn’t even interested in exercising power without responsibility, which would be his prerogative.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“I love the marriage proposal in this one, on the station platform. First Sir Richard Carlisle tells Mary she can call him just Richard. Well, if that’s not romantic, I don’t know what is. She must know what’s coming.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“The jeopardy of this sitcom is our slow realisation that Larry is no constantly being mistaken for a racist, misogynist jerk, but rather, constantly being revealed as one.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Look at new section chief Erin Watts, unattached, with a young child. You can be a great spy and a great mum. It sends out positive messages about work and single-parenting; you don’t get that in Tinker Tailor …”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian