TV Critics: The Eichmann Show; Excluded: Kicked Out of School; The Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home

“If this drama was intended as a justification of the televising of courtrooms, one might quibble with other sleights of hand. Even the most harrowing footage, that shown to Eichmann himself, was not left to speak for itself but accompanied by Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Yet The Eichmann Show remained a powerful, at times almost overwhelming, testament both to the horror and to the moral agency of witnessing.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Mixing archive clips of the actual trial into the drama was an effective way of reminding viewers, too, of the magnitude of what had been at stake. But what most impressed was the belief of all those involved (and reflected in every line of Simon Block’s fine script) that only telling the truth, and remembering, could prevent it happening again.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph

“The real drama of this story took place not in the camera-control room, but in the courtroom itself. Wisely, director Paul Andrew Williams did not attempt a creaky re-enactment of these courtroom scenes but included the original 1961 footage, giving a new generation the opportunity to stare into the inexpressive eyes of evil.”
Ellen E Jones, The Independent

“Grainy and colourless as it was, the real footage of the trial was powerful enough. The scripted parts, with their dilemmas over where to put the cameras and what to do about the ratings, felt not just like interruptions but minor outrages.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“The Eichmann Show was full of good actors and good intentions. Perhaps it would have been better to choose between documenting and dramatising the trial or the televising of it. As it was, The Eichmann Show fell between two stools. It did full justice neither to the trial nor the achievement of Fruchtman and Hurwitz in beginning to turn the tide of denial back in favour of the truth.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Our ministers in charge of education, crime, punishment and equality of all kinds are in denial about what causes antisocial behaviour in young people (and indeed older people – all those pretending to be disabled, choosing to be disadvantaged, secretly loving being poor, you know who you are) – it’s either pure stupidity, innate wickedness or a particularly toxic compound of the two.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Excluded: Kicked Out of School is one of those documentaries that leaves you wondering why BBC3 is being canned. Taking a dispassionate gaze into the mayhem of a special education unit in west London, it’s neither bleak nor bleeding-heart.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“There was rather too much discussion of chimney architecture in The Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home, another instalment of Suzannah Lipscomb’s sexed-up social history series. Lipscomb is prim, but not too proper to don Tudor garb, dive in and demonstrate how it was so many people drowned in shallow streams or ponds. That almost made up for the 20-minute chimney lecture.”
Ellen E Jones, The Independent