TV Critics: The White Queen; Agatha Christie's Marple; Goodbye Granadaland;

“As a straight romance it had its moments. As a dramatisation of history it had serious failings, devoid as it was of any note of the hardship, chill and squalor of life in 15th-century England… The brave decision to cast two unknowns as the main characters, Rebecca Ferguson as Elizabeth and Max Irons as Edward, backfired not so much due to their acting abilities but because of a lack of clarity in the writing… Fortunately there was fun to be had elsewhere, nearly all of it in the hands of a wonderful supporting cast who whooped it up like they were fresh off the set of Horrible Histories.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph

“There is no reason the BBC drama department should not make this middlebrow serial. But oh, how I wish it were not such utter tosh. This is history airbrushed and sanitised, prettified and tidied up, glamourised and un-nuanced… There is little trace of wit in Emma Frost’s writing… You would need wonderful actors to make this credible and too few of the cast are.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It must surely have occurred to somebody that an audience with a taste for late-medieval trappings and courtly plotting might find Plantagenet dynastic skulduggery to their taste as well. But if it was intended as bait, and if any Game of Thrones fans took it, I don’t think it will be long before they spit out the hook. Not only is The White Queen unforgivably light on dragons, it also strikes you as considerably less historically plausible than Game of Thrones, despite being based on real events… I’m sure it will give innocent pleasure to many, but a lot of cod had to sacrifice their wallops to make it possible.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Soft porn, that’s what this is really: classy, tasteful, soft porn. It’s supposed to be history from a more female perspective? Well, if that means Fifty Shades of History, maybe.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“ITV’s star-spangled Poirot and Marple mysteries have, over the years, become such grand, opulently produced institutions, they sometimes lapse into ponderousness totally at odds with their featherlight source material. But A Caribbean Mystery was as fresh as a breeze running in off the sea on a hot Bermudan night… Charlie Higson brought an easy wit to his script… and the recognisable but hardly stellar cast (apart from Antony Sher) played it all with an admirable lightness of touch.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph

“I’m not sure Miss Marple belongs in the Caribbean, does she? There are other unMarpley elements too – a bit of voodoo, zombies, even a few non-white people around the place… Once the first murder happens it settles into a familiar route, rattling along, swiftly but gently, with plenty of famous faces about the place and Miss M’s denouement at the end. It’s just that the denouement is a bit sweatier and takes place in a tropical hotel lounge rather than the usual English drawing room.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“It was a hugely enjoyable revamp of the traditional country house murder format, spiced with a whiff of voodoo. It also had a poignant message behind it…  these people at the end of their lives sharing a wisdom and a kinship that the younger characters were too self-absorbed to see. It became, in its way, a little mediation on the value of older people.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“A clip-show celebration marking the closure of the original Granada studios in Manchester, featured the word ‘iconic’ more often than was comfortable, but delivered an enjoyable nostalgic wallow all the same.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“As a native of North-West England, I shared in some of that illogical tribal loyalty to the Granada logo and theme tune and mourned a little to think of those imposing Stalinist studios being torn down. I had hoped for a little more than a bunch of clips of the programmes made there and a parade of actors gushing.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“There’s only so much oddness one can swallow without explanations… The child-like simplicity of a script that fails to address even fairly obvious questions like how the remarkable resurrection of at least five dead locals could be kept entirely separate and undiscussed in a tiny, inward-looking mountain community, was starting to lose its charm… Of course it doesn’t pay to apply logic to ghost stories, but for a series that relies so heavily on emotion over reason, it doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to want those emotions to be consistent with basic human nature.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph