The Light in the Hall; Our Flag Means Death; Ukraine: The People’s Fight

“For those of us who have not yet cast off our seasonal somnolence and still wish to be eased into things, a thriller without too much in the way of thrills hits the spot. The friendship between Sharon (Joanna Scanlan) and Dai (Morgan Hopkins) is beautifully and tenderly drawn and Sharon’s tyrannical oversight of the bereavement group she runs and the members’ forbearance is lovely, as well as preventing Sharon becoming an anodyne saintly-grieving-mother figure. Assuming the pace picks up in coming episodes there will be enough to reward viewing.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Joanna Scanlan is a fabulous actress, but even she couldn’t make The Light in the Hall shine. It’s not that it had a bad script (OK, it was bad sometimes), it’s that I felt I had seen it all before and a decent cast couldn’t lift its tired legs. However, I liked the way that it features realistic people in authentic, ordinary houses and it’s not all kitchen islands and rainfall showers.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Episode one is all a bit bleak and ponderous but I ended up watching the whole series and the pace does pick up. It turns into a thriller, albeit not an especially thrilling one, with a list of suspects drawn from the tiny rural community. Scanlan, a Bafta-winning actress, is the biggest name and gives an affecting portrait of grief, but it is members of the supporting cast who catch the eye, including Ifan Huw Dafydd as Joe’s forbidding father.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Joanna Scanlan, as Sharon, is the only reason to waste a minute watching this disjointed mess. She makes the best of it, with a strong show of silent emotion. I will remember her performance long after I’ve forgotten the story.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The Light in the Hall is a straight-down-the-line crime drama, about a grieving mother and the man who, in her eyes, killed her daughter. It has good acting, beautiful surroundings and wonderful accents.”
Emily Baker, The i

“The mystery at the heart of The Light in the Hall is an intriguing enough one – it’s blindingly obvious that something’s amiss with the official version of events, but hard to discern exactly what. Stretching this mystery over six episodes, however, may not have been the wisest call: creator Regina Moriarty’s series moves at a dour trudge and doesn’t have enough life in its crevices to really sustain any tension.”
Louis Chilton, The Independent

“If you get through the first couple of episodes on iPlayer, slowly, Our Flag Means Death finds its feet as a moseying gang show with a tender heart. The joke that these 18th-century people all talk as if they are in 2023 seems glib at the outset but, once the series reveals itself to be gently but firmly diverse and inclusive, that dissonance acquires a serious purpose as a love letter to those long dead who couldn’t be themselves in their own times. Our Flag Means Death might be too laid-back to actually be funny, but it drifts towards somewhere good.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“Although it’s set in the early 18th century, Our Flag Means Death is a very modern comedy in that it takes its time, rolling the dice that as a series of half-hours many viewers will watch several episodes at once. We recommend you stay for the voyage, because once the easy gags about a progressive pirate captain several fathoms out of his depth have all been used up, Our Flag Means Death charts a slightly different course.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“Most of the gags splutter and misfire, but the basic idea has lots of potential, if the comedy gets some wind in its sails.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Ukraine: The People’s Fight was dazzling, intimate documentary-making. Olly Lambert spent two months with the Ukrainian volunteers helping to fight Putin’s soldiers and he made it feel as if we were there with them, feeling the mortar shells shake the ground.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Lambert’s film was a superb, on-the-ground portrait of a nation refusing to give in. Watching it, one couldn’t help wondering if Britain’s architects and salesmen and teachers would behave this way under similar circumstances. Or is there something in the Ukrainian psyche?”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph