TV Critics: The Lady Vanishes; Our Queen; It's Kevin; In the Flesh; Churchill and the Fascist Plot

“It’s not really bad, and Tuppence Middleton puts in a spirited performance as (an oddly unlikable) Iris Carr. Why though? Why remake Hitchcock? It is, quite simply, never a good idea. Never.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Tuppence Middleton as Iris was obliged for some reason to play the heroine as a petulant little trust-fund type, so self-entitled you really don’t care whether she triumphs over the baddies or not. Hitchcock made the case for a silly thriller by plugging it into the profound anxieties of Munich and simultaneously pushing his tongue into his cheek. This new version sadly makes no case for it at all.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“This film got off to such a langorous and largely unamusing start in a Balkans hotel that I feared the characters would miss the train on which the fun starts. Although Tuppence Middleton showed some spirit in the Margaret Lockwood role, the fun did not actually start until Alex Jennings and Tom Hughes materialised… I kept wondering what it was about… I concluded it was to provide Middleton and Hughes with a spin-off, Iris Carr Investigates.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It was much more amusing than Andrew Marr’s dull and pompous Diamond Queen of last year, infinitely more exciting than the TV hours given over to her Jubilee River Pageant, and suffered none of the scandal associated with the last time the BBC attempted to show us a year in the life of the Queen… With Our Queen, producer/director Michael Waldman managed that rare trick of making a film about the monarch that was always respectful but never po faced.”
Serena Davies, The Telegraph

“It’s not a short two hours. But nor is it without interest or insight. I don’t really feel I know her any better after this, but I do know more about what it must be like to be her.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Has a monarch ever been held in higher esteem by her subjects? It’s difficult to imagine and anyone viewing the excellent Our Queen will have been reminded yet again what an extraordinary woman the ever so down-to-earth Elizabeth II really is… For someone who must never express an opinion there can’t be a wiser political head in the land… Long may she reign. What an extraordinarily lucky country we are.”
Virginia Blackburn, Daily Express

“A victory for middle-age in a world obsessed with youth. It’s a sketch show, yes, but it’s OK because he pretty much rips up the sketch show book, throws himself and his warped imagination at it, plus a healthy dollop of lunacy. The Führer with the voice of Beatles produce George Martin? Ha!”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“From the involuntary wheezing noises that persistently interrupted my viewing of It’s Kevin, I can be absolutely sure that it’s my type of funny … He can make you giggle just by looking at you, gifted with a face that can twist from bland normality to something gargoylish in an instant.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“In the Flesh does for zombies what True Blood did for vampires, presenting them as victims of social prejudice rather than monsters. It’s got heart and brains, and not all of them are splattered over a supermarket floor.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“In the Flesh is not entirely original… But it is well done. There are lovely performances, not least from Steve Evets (the tramp in Rev) as the HVF leader, Kenneth Cranham as a vicar brimming with inhuman kindness and, in a small, rabble-roused part, Ricky Tomlinson… My only concern was whether Luke Newberry was charismatic enough as Kieren. Then again, can you underplay a zombie?”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“A zombie series that you don’t have to be into zombies to appreciate… Very well done, chilling and strong.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“It was an extraordinary story involving Russian emigrees, traitors employed in the American embassy and members of the aristocracy, all presided over by the rabidly anti-semitic MP Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay… It was a remarkable story and stranger than fiction. Full marks all round.”
Virginia Blackburn, Daily Express