TV Critics: Wallander; Alfie’s Boys; Love, Nina

“The first of the end run of Wallander proved a particularly bloodless affair. It was a slow and predictable story of majority government corruption. Even the great Kenneth Branagh found it hard to more than wander through it.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Branagh wasn’t bad in the role, of course: he never is. But it’s a bizarre decision to make Wallander a fitness fanatic, when the original character is so different in the books. You might as well reimagine Sherlock Holmes as a party animal, or Hercule Poirot as a gunslinger.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Picking his way through an alien world of shebeens, shanties and land grabs, Wallander’s traditional doggedness remained reassuringly to the front. [But it] was Grace’s story and even though Wallander was in almost every scene, it constantly felt as if he belonged back home.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“The change of scene, aside from some beautiful panoramas, offered the pleasure of watching a Swedish policeman played by an Englishman speak halting English to South Africans and fluent Swedish to Swedes, but always in English.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“I love it all, until Wallander finally delivers the speech he went there to give in the first place. Every little counts! From the (thin) lips of our Sir Ken, that’s not right, is it? Not just dodgy grammatically, and uncharacteristically sentimental, but it’s hard not to think of a well-known supermarket. What is this, Nordic noir the Tesco way?”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“This thorough documentary told us nothing we didn’t know, but it did it with such affectionate nostalgia that an hour-and-a-half flew by.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“World Cup 1966: Alfie’s Boys seemed to be insinuating it was either cunning or amazing good luck that won us the final. Are we so unused to winning things that our one great victory has to be presented as if it were an unexpectedly successful bank job?”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Perhaps there are some lessons for the current lot, off to France next month. Once there, they should be highly suspicious of all foreigners, and fiercely patriotic. That should do the trick. And then, when they’ve won it, they can go home and mow the lawn.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“The Lady in the Van 2 this isn’t. But the latest addition to the Gloucester Terrace filmography has a gentle appeal that honours the book without quite capturing its idiosyncrasies.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“The most important thing is that writer Nick Hornby and director SJ Clarkson have captured the spirit and hilariousness of the book. It’s a joy, like having a spy in an extraordinary north London world of writers and film directors and academics.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian