“Mary Sackville-West’s famous poets series is turning into the best thing TV has yet done with poetry.” Read on for the full verdict on last night’s TV.

Armando Iannucci in Milton’s Heaven and Hell, BBC2
“Mary Sackville-West’s famous poets series is turning into the best thing TV has yet done with poetry.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

Armando Iannucci in Milton’s Heaven and Hell, BBC2
“This was by far my favourite programme in the BBC’s Poetry Season, because it actually educated and inspired me – and you? – to investigate something I never would have otherwise. That should be the point of these cultural missives, after all.”
Paul Whitelaw, The Scotsman

Armando Iannucci in Milton’s Heaven and Hell, BBC2
“Iannucci guided us through heaven and hell using his own heavily underlined paperback as a map. Finding a first edition of Paradise Lost in Chalfont St Giles, he was enthralled and fell silent: ‘I’ve started reading it now. Which, I imagine, is bad television.’ Oh no, I wouldn’t say that.”
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian

Armando Iannucci in Milton’s Heaven and Hell, BBC2
“I absolutely believed that Iannucci both knew and cared for this poem.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

Feasts, BBC4
“Why is Stephen Gates considered to be more interesting than anything he points his camera at?”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

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