Art That Made Us; Falklands War; Nikki Grahame; Hard Cell

“Art That Made Us was an entertaining – if a little ‘full on’ at times – documentary that ‘funked up’ British art from AD400 with the use of heavy rock music and the grizzle-bearded Michael Sheen on stage reciting the medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin. Anyway there are eight episodes and all credit to them for not being dry-as-a-bone art homilies.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Art That Made Us is stuffed to the gills with presenters, commentators and experts. When these people are academics, it works. Even when they’re celebrities of a sort, it can work. But it turns out that some people – artists, mostly – want to insert themselves into the picture. The programme keeps showing us contemporary artists’ work instead of focusing on the chosen artefacts and the times in which they were made. It’s a shame, because the idea is excellent and the academics have a great deal of knowledge to impart.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Ben Fogle’s excellent Falklands War: The Forgotten Battle highlighted the terrible injustice suffered by NP8901, a small unit of Royal Marines already stationed on the islands when the Argentinians invaded. A recent Channel 4 documentary brilliantly busted some myths about the conflict, but this is the only one that has tackled this extraordinary story and interviewed some of the men who were essentially called cowards.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The question that this programme danced around is to what extent reality TV is culpable for her death. It’s not every day I turn to Vanessa Feltz for wisdom, but she came off as the smartest analyst here when she noted that Grahame was ’torn apart’ by her conflicting desires: to starve herself until she disappeared, and to be seen by as many people as possible.”
Helen Brown, The Telegraph

“Catherine Tate plays a series of broadly familiar caricatures which are then unpicked over six episodes, with mixed success. Above all, it feels terribly dated, with endless toilet humour and a mock-doc approach that could only be described as Gervaisian. Perhaps it’s critique of prison reformers, or a treatise on the essential darkness of human nature. Who knows, but it is, at least, better than The Nan Movie.”
Gabriel Tate, The Telegraph