TV Critics: Educating the East End; Chasing Shadows; Castles in the Sky

“Has the Educating format lost its charm? I don’t think so; the reverse, rather. The documentary-makers, in search of “the next Musharaf” and other Bafta-bait, could easily have made the little dramas in Educating the East End more hyperbolic. But this low-key debut suggests that the series has kept its integrity”.
Iona McLaren, The Telegraph

“Educating Yorkshire is hard to follow but Educating the East End might yet end up with a set of As”.
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Channel 4 transforms an ordinary secondary school into a eight-episode laugh-a-minute, cry-your-eyes-out docu-drama via the magical means of fixed-rig cameras… Part of the genius of Educating… is that it gives you a dual-perspective on education which was inaccessible during our own schooldays”. 
Ellen E Jones, The Independent

“It’s all great, like Essex and Yorkshire were before. Funny and moving”.
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“A very watchable and quietly funny new crime series concerning a maverick detective whose lack of social grace achieves such heroic proportions that the concept becomes almost original again…  It doesn’t tear up the rule book. But in a genre overflowing with identikit mavericks, this one might be more maverick than the rest.”
Iona McLaren, The Telegraph

“An attempt at creating a homegrown version of The Bridge, with a detective protagonist who’s clearly supposed to have some kind of autism spectrum disorder….If it’s not a little insulting, it’s certainly ridiculous”.
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“A very apt title…but not for the reasons ITV would like. Watching the opening episode of this four-part series feels like being taunted by the phantom of what might have been… It’s a shame because alongside Alex Kingston and Noel Clarke, Reece Shearsmith forms part of a very appealing trio – appealing because unlikely. These three are like exiles from three very different ITV dramas, who’ve all somehow collided in this one.”
Ellen E Jones, The Independent

“This concept felt like it had been assembled by identikit…. too many of the scenes seem to have been painted by numbers”.
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“A little hammy sometimes.. and the class world war is overplayed to the point of tiresome. But Eddie Izzard is splendid somehow becoming someone completely different as well as leaving just a hint of himself in the part…It’s a fabulous story, of plucky British ingenuity taking on the might of the Third Reich”.
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Not a classic of the type, but was still a worthwhile effort… The Whitehall machinations were dull. The public-school snobbery was overdone. Some of the dialogue sounded anachronistic…And not even Eddie Izzard and Laura Fraser could make us care about a marriage whose disintegration was logged by phone calls. 
Andrew Billen, The Times