Celebrity Bear Hunt; Mussolini: Son of the Century

“I haven’t had this much fun watching a reality TV competition since the earliest days of I’m a Celebrity … Get Me out of Here!. Celebrity Bear Hunt is fast, the contestants are surprisingly funny and the jeopardy – if the third episode’s trailer and tabloid reports of the injuries and near-misses during filming are anything to go by – is real. Or at least more real than usual. The trap is set and I suspect viewers will take the bait in droves.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“As much as there may be an audience for him stalking around in camouflage face paint offering pearls of wisdom from behind large shrubs, it’s not enough to hold this show together. Much of it feels like the challenges in The Traitors without the rest of the game. What’s more, in her infrequent appearances Holly Willoughby lacks the sass and spirit of Claudia Winkleman or the irreverence of Ant and Dec, leaving the best part of an hour an episode as hard work.”
Tim Glanfield, The Times

“Holly Willoughby is too friendly as host, giving off a cosy, supportive vibe rather than building tension. The celebs certainly don’t look like they’re particularly suffering and most seem like they don’t want to be there – model Leomie Anderson’s biggest challenge seems to be pretending that she cares. I’ve never seen a cast approach a supposed survival show with such nonchalance. Grylls needs to up the ante fast, or this survival show is dead in the water.”
Tilly Pearce, The i

“Absolutely nothing about the show works. There is no jeopardy, there are no stakes. Twelve random civilians and a chunky cash prize would have given us something to hang onto, but it is impossible to care if Danny Cipriani or Kate Moss’s little sister can boost their public profile by staying in the programme for a few days.”
Chris Bennion, The Telegraph

“As a portrait of the vanity and swagger of one man’s mind as well as a warning from history that charts the many complex forces that propelled him to supreme power in 1925, Mussolini: Son of the Century, adapted from Antonio Scurati’s book, works magnificently.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Totalitarianism’s propensity for being tedious as well as grotesque is captured rather too well by the director Joe Wright’s lavish, stagey Mussolini: Son of the Century, an eight-part dramatisation of Antonio Scurati’s prize-winning book. It’s quite a spectacle, but it doesn’t half go on. Cut it in half and Son of the Century would be a potent portrait of a pathetic monster, brilliantly performed and striking to look at.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“Across the eight episodes, the hectic, rhythmic, incessant tone of the piece becomes tiring. Yet it’s a remarkable drama, immersive and oppressive, and one that shows how a man of fierce charisma and no principles can make fools of absolutely everybody.”
Chris Bennion, The Telegraph

“English director Joe Wright flaunts his influences. He’s not just paying homage to cinema and television greats, he’s parodying them — as if to emphasise that none of Il Duce’s ideas were original, but were all stolen. Some images echo famous silent movie directors such as Sergei Eisenstein or Fritz Lang — close-ups of screaming mouths, for example, and eyes wide with terror. All this gives the series a nightmarish quality, like a game played by a psychotic sadist — which is exactly what Mussolini was.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail