The Funeral Murders; Imagine…

“Finding balance in a documentary about the Troubles must have been a desperate task; I am sure people on both sides who know far more about it than I do will find points to argue with. To me, though, this is a masterful and careful handling of an ever-combustible narrative.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“Immaculately put together, this documentary articulated how violence begets more violence, like a flicked wall of dominoes. What it did, sensitively and unsensationally, is show what barbarity human beings are capable of. And the miserable senselessness of it all.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Vanessa Engle’s transparent lack of partisanship, sharp ear for semantic subtlety, and even sharper eye for a revealing glance or telling background object, was precisely what was needed here. To deliver such a balanced and non-judgemental account – encompassing the views of Republicans, Loyalists, police officers from the RUC, former soldiers and even ordinary passers-by, is quite an achievement.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph

“The film concluded by saying there could be no single truth, only the diferent versions of everyone involved. It had certainly gathered a great deal of them with courage and sensitivity and – as all documentariues should – added something to history.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Lloyd-Webber is a generous interviewee who clearly likes to talk. So it’s a pity that in Imagine … Alan Yentob didn’t press him further in areas that seemed groaning with ripe fruit. But there was still much to enjoy in this fizzing 90-minute romp through his remarkable career.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“While the film focused on Lloyd Webber’s commercial success, it was disappointingly thin in terms of artistic appraisal. In the end, you couldn’t help feeling that even Lloyd Webber might have been happier with a less blandly box office-oriented assessment of his 50-year contribution to musical theatre.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph