“So many bowls of bhuna, plates of prawn balls and buttered baguettes flashed before us that I began to feel travel sick.”
Timeshift: Spicing Up Britain- How Eating Went Exotic, BBC4
“Some of the clips seemed otherworldly, despite being younger than most of the Cabinet. I could have watched three hours’ worth. The Timeshift strand is such a joy because there are few things better than poring over archive footage of ordinary Britons going about their lives.”
Will Dean, The Independent
“The producers’ mistake was to offer too much variety. In a crammed second half, they attempted to explain how the British palate had expanded to accept French, Indian and Chinese cuisine. So many bowls of bhuna, plates of prawn balls and buttered baguettes flashed before us that I began to feel travel sick.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
“It was, as we’d expected, a rich and satisfying story but, in making the fair point that immigration brings with it great grub, some aspects of the story were overlooked. Those hard-working immigrants who arrived with their food and their ambitions in the post-war years found a repetitive audience because we’d spent centuries in their countries, eating their food and enjoying it.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express
This World: Secrets of Mexico’s Drug War, BBC2
“The drug issues of Mexico might seem like light-hearted fun when college children get their spring break fix in Tijuana, but Secrets of Mexico’s Drug War showed the horrifying scale of the country’s narcotics problem. Unwinnable war sounds about right.”
Isabel Mohan, The Telegraph
“If you are American and you don’t like drugs, there is another way you can fund this system: by paying your taxes. The documentary argues that the US doesn’t just provide the money that fuels Mexico’s drug wars, it provides all the weaponry, too. It was a US government operation from start to finish.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian
In and Out of the Kitchen, BBC4
“The sophistication of the comedy can be judged by the laxative courgette-soup jokes and the equally running gag that Salman Rushdie was plaguing Trench’s agent with calls for advice on his washer-dryer. Two stars, and neither of them Michelins.”
Andrew Billen, The Times
“At times, it is so bone dry that you might think you are watching a documentary about an insanely boring gay couple. It is really just a finely observed exploration of one man’s battle against the modern world, waged with such fussy precision that you can’t help but take his side.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian
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