TV Critics: Cuba with Simon Reeve; Last Tango In Halifax; Inside Guinness World Records

“A one-hour documentary was only ever going to scratch Cuba’s surface. There was only brief mention of the punitive US trade embargo, a testament, if nothing else, to America’s tenacity when it comes to pursuing failed policies… Given the limitations, Reeve and producer/director Tom McCarthy were wise to stick with ordinary Cubans, who come across as resourceful and uncomplaining, bearing in mind that complaining isn’t really allowed. Taken together each little portrait added up to a picture of a country on the verge of great change.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian

“Reeve’s film started with a kind of checklist of Cuban television clichés: Fifties cars bucketing through the potholed streets, locals with stogies the size of drainpipes, waves breaking over the Malecon and Havana’s crumbling stucco… But the ordinary details of daily life he filmed offered a steady, wordless rebuke to the dream of a centrally planned economy.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“As I tuned into Cuba with Simon Reeve, I wondered when was the last time I’d seen Mr Reeve somewhere cold and inhospitable. Admittedly, back in 2005 he spent a lot of time in assorted fly-blown Central Asian republics, so you could say he’s earned his gig making telly programmes about sunny, warm countries. He makes them very well but I just can’t help envying him or hoping uncharitably that his next job takes him to Accrington ring road.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Cuba with Simon Reeve was the missing episode from Last Chance to See. In this case the near-extinct species was not a mammal but Castro’s failed socialist experiment… I could, however, have done with a bit more analysis of why the Cuban experiment failed and to what extent the American embargo could be blamed.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It’s undemanding and warm-hearted, and it makes a change to have a drama centred on an older couple. But I’m not convinced that saying ‘reet’ or ‘appen’ now and then really turns Derek Jacobi into a convincing Yorkshireman.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“If I hear the randy pensioners one more time collapse with pretend laughter, I may cancel my subscription to Age UK… Their coyness and bursts of faux-vulgarity last night made me want to shove on an episode of Getting On, just to remind me how well old-age can be written on TV.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“You might have expected a series as potentially exploitative as Inside Guinness World Records to boast a nonsensically self-justifying voiceover, and it did… The show was better than I expected, though. There was something heartwarming about the pastoral care Guinness officials dole out during the course of their official duties.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian