Happy Face; Gangs of London

“By the standards of TV adaptations of hit podcasts, Happy Face can be considered a success. It stands on its own two feet as a drama and tells a grisly story without exploiting the victims or making the viewer feel cheapened or complicit merely by the act of watching.”
Ed Power, The Independent

“Although it becomes a little more consistent in the second half, Happy Face remains a weirdly soapy, at times saccharine, evocation of triumph over trauma and the mawkish celebration of the courage of victims and the survivors of terrible violence that patronises rather than honours them. The whole thing feels tired, shoddy and half-baked.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Taken on its own terms Happy Face does keep you gripped through to the eighth hour. But the whole point of true-crime telly is that it is not to be taken on its own terms – it actually happened. Somewhere, several rights deals in the background, there are eight dead women and their families. One doesn’t have to lapse into sententiousness to see that they are only further obscured by each new iteration, and all in the name of the true-crime gold rush.
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“Season three continues the tradition of bruising fistfights and exuberant shootouts, all executed at an impressive technical level and mischievously sprinkled with wince-inducing flourishes. But it also doubles down on the convoluted mythology of blood feuds and favours owed between power players. Between the jolts of carnage it can be hard to keep all the motivations straight across eight episodes, especially if your memories of what everyone was up to in the first season are hazy. So it is unlikely to win over anyone who has found its previous glamorisation of theatrical gangsters and extreme violence distasteful. Yet in full flight Gangs of London can still be nerve-shredding TV.”
Graeme Virtue, The Guardian

“It is exceedingly creative when it comes to thinking up new grisly deaths, I’ll give it that. But hell it’s depressing. Talk about Groundhog Day. It’s one shoot-em-up after another, ad nauseam. That’s when it’s not one messy knifing after another. Or worse. Much worse. Slick as its production values are and despite the quality of some of the performances, the violence is all becoming quite exhausting. I enjoyed some of the first series because it felt fresh and daring. Now it is starting to grate.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The high-octane series starts at a million miles per hour but flags towards the end of its eight episodes. Betrayals and double-crossings grow repetitive. Flashbacks become confusing. Characters are constantly ordering hits on one another and placing bounty on rivals’ heads. The ending is underwhelming.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph