“It looks great and the cast is fantastic”
Culprits, Disney+
“It is the sort of TV that will inevitably be called ‘slick’: it is highly stylised and whips along at a pace; it looks great and the cast is fantastic. In all its glossy richness, though, it also manages to sneak in a few intriguing horror-adjacent ideas that offer greater depth than you might expect.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian
“Culprits is a stylish production with satisfyingly bloody action sequences, classy backdrops and a comic book sensibility. The enticing opening episode has great potential, building intrigue by weaving Joe’s idyllic present with snippets of his violent past. As long as you’re willing to get on board with some requisite genre silliness, it’s glossy and gripping stuff.”
Rachel Sigee, The i
“Ever since John Wick, thrillers have dispensed with realism and embraced a comic book-esque heightened reality. That’s fine if zen fountainhead Keanu Reeves is shouldering the silliness. When it’s Niamh Algar and Gemma Arterton looking as if they’ve just stepped in something unpleasant, it’s a much tougher sell. Culprits never comes close to sealing the deal. As Reservoir Dogs tributes go, this one is a bit of a howler.”
Ed Power, The Telegraph
Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius, BBC2
“As a piece of work charting the historical context of his life (living through two monarchs and the plague) and the political and social hoops he had to jump through to be accepted, it was enjoyable. However, I would have welcomed a deeper sense of Shakespeare as a person.”
Carol Midgley, The Times
“Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius would be a great resource for schools. It’s not a programme aimed at experts, and some may find it too shallow, but it does a decent job of outlining Shakespeare’s journey from ‘upstart crow’ to playwright who performed for Elizabeth I.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph
“Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius does a solid job of examining his life and times and showing how ambition and opportunism were almost as important as his natural genius.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i
“Prof Hannah was exploring the history of passports and the technology they use to foil forgers. It was all fascinating stuff, told at a lively pace.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
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