TV Critics: Love and Marriage; The Apprentice; D-Day

“To squeeze in the humour as well as all the drama was asking a lot of writer Stewart Harcourt and, on the evidence of the first episode, perhaps a bridge too far. It’s difficult to be funny when you’re so busy establishing characters and plot… As we get to know the Paradise clan better, the jokes will hopefully improve. In the meantime, the drama should keep people tuning in.”
Paul Kendall, The Telegraph

“We’re going to get a lot more of this baby boomer, late-life regrets drama before we’re over the demographic hump, I fear. Like Last Tango in Halifax it seems almost calculatingly aimed at a wedge of the audience that sees no reason why it should be excluded from the excitements of youth… Love and Marriage doesn’t always seem to be able to distinguish between pretend pain – which you can use to animate a narrative – and the real thing, which can’t be fixed with a heartfelt speech and a few tears. It may get better, but it needs to.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Alongside Alison Steadman’s weary Pauline, Celia Imrie is in fine form as her amorous uptown sis, and the kids and kids-in-law are a charming bunch, with a warm Ashley Jensen and furtive Stewart Wright early stand-outs from a crowd of familiar telly faces.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“If there’s time for one last career-change, I may contemplate corporate away-days. That was the challenge in The Apprentice this week, and by the look of it, if you can shovel aspirational bullshit over your clients with enough confidence and make sure lunch is good, you can make a fortune.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“I couldn’t sit through it. It was too embarrassing. Four times I had to leave the room. On each occasion I had to use heavy persuasion to go back in and press play. Now I’m a veteran of social embarassment on TV, I’ve sat through Nuts in May and Abigail’s Party. I’ve made it through two series of Fawlty Towers, I’ve seen Stuart Baggs at his acme, but this was something else.”
Chris Harvey, The Telegraph

“Sitting in front of the television at precisely 9.47pm and watching footage of men preparing for the attack at exactly the same time on the same date 69 years ago was a heart-in-the-mouth moment and the very definition of ‘living history’… If Channel 4’s mission was to remind viewers of the sacrifices made that day, and what a difference those men made to our lives, then it has already been an unqualified success.”
Paul Kendall, The Telegraph