Flatpack Empire; What Would Your Kid Do?; Inside No. 9

“The programme was a touch more interesting than you would expect from a profile of a furniture chain. It was quickly apparent, though, that this was not going to be one of those corporate documentaries boasting blood on the carpet, operating instead more as a time-capsule portrait — lifting the lid just enough to keep you going even without a meatballs and Daim bar incentive.”
James Jackson, the Times

“I doubt Ikea bosses realised that Flatpack Empire would cast quite such a sinister portrait of the company. It’s true that their sofas are jolly comfortable, but watching this made me want to run screaming all the way to Argos.”
Gabriel Tate, The Telegraph

“British designer Tom Dixon’s bed sofa provides an amusing thread to this revealing three-part documentary. Timely, too, after the death last week of Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“The high concept of ITV’s inane, warm-hearted, retrograde new show What Would Your Kid Do? is making Channel 4’s The Secret Life of 5 Year Olds into a game. Jason Manford offered relaxed quippery while quietly pocketing the cheque, and I idly wondered how much booze had been pumped into the studio audience cheering and convulsing through it all.”
James Jackson, The Times

“This is a combination of The Secret Life Of Five-Year-Olds and Mr & Mrs. One boy with the marvellous Greek name of Genethlios attempted to cram an entire tub of marshmallows into his face while the teacher’s back was turned. Hard to say which was funnier …the mortified mum and dad or the small boy’s face as he attempted to swallow his own weight in confectionery.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The script was as rigorous as ever, with nothing said or seen without reason. Yet it was, by the standards of this series, a little predictable and prosaic. The twists felt telegraphed, the tugs on the heartstrings a little half-hearted, Keith’s switch to cold-blooded killer didn’t convince and the gags felt crowbarred in. All that said, there still aren’t many better ways to while away half an hour than in the company of these two and their twisted imaginations.”
Gabriel Tate, The Telegraph

“There are things you can criticise about ‘Tempting Fate’. But in tried and tested Inside No 9 fashion, it succeeds in subverting our expectations just when we think we have everything figured out. And its segue from eerie horror into something far more playful and darkly comic is almost a reversal of what we have seen in previous instalments at times.”
Mark Butler, The i

“This eight-part series promises to be the ideal companion to Peter Morgan’s dramatisation of her reign, The Crown, on Netflix. That drama could do little more than hint at her early years, but here we had a whole hour of insights, including some from courtiers who had known the princesses as children. They were a fearsomely posh lot, but they had some delightful details to tell.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“However much research they do, however many inner-circle types they get on board to contribute, shows like Elizabeth: Our Queen are never going to deliver the deliver the detail modern audiences want. We’re used to seeing it all, to the least bright lights in the celebrity heavens sharing and over-sharing the last scraps of their souls.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express