TV Critics: The Choir; Storyville; The Moonstone; Ordinary Lies

“By the time Mums in Durham are at the miner’s welfare centre belting out Billy Joel’s She’s Always a Woman to Me to their weeping children, husbands and nans, I’m sold. Gareth is moved watching them sing. I am moved watching him watch them.”
Chitra Ramaswamy, The Guardian

“The success of Malone’s programmes largely relies on the moment that his charges’ confidence takes wing aloft their voices — the moment my eyes moisten. It’s an old trick and I’m tiring of it, but it worked again when the Mums sang a snatch of She’s Always a Woman to primary schoolchildren and went down a storm.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“For a man who loves music, Gareth has a deplorable taste in songs. The winning choir were asked to perform a rather insipid Billy Joel number called She’s Always A Woman. What’s wrong with a hymn?”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The tales of brutality, lack of sanitation, sexual exploitation and deaths were horrific. This terrific, nauseating film left me feeling that the right thing to do is to drum Australia out of the international community.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“The footage, and the quavering recollections of people who had gone to the camps to help, were hard to watch. Harder still, though, were the politicians on Australian television, refusing to admit they had done wrong.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“The photography is beautiful. The characters are constantly filmed with sunlit windows behind them, giving the production a grainy look that is dreamlike in quality. It’s worth catching an episode, just for this.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Toke’s was another, typically splendid tale of rash deeds and karmic consequence, although the ending was a little flat.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express