Funny Woman; Joan Rivers at the BBC; Big Cats 24/7

“The overriding effect is gentle warmth – and on an ambient level, the world of Funny Woman remains an inviting one. The sets are a vision of cosy nostalgia. The rehearsal-room camaraderie is infectious. It has a feelgood sentimentality, too. But rather than a compelling character study, it now resembles a classy soap: the storylines driving the action along feel superficial and tacked on. The result is a comedy-drama as obviously contrived as the old-school sitcoms it eulogises.”
Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian

“The script feels half-finished with lines of dialogue that land like place-holders for a better joke. The show suffers from not being hilarious enough to work as comedy while coming off as too slight to succeed as drama. Gemma Arterton delivers a convincing portrait of underdog gumption – but Funny Woman’s inability to strike a coherent tone is no laughing matter.”
Ed Power, The Telegraph

“Sophie might be a trailblazer, but Funny Woman plays it pretty safe. There’s something of a Call the Midwife sensibility about it – a well-executed and good-looking period drama tackling the big social and political issues of the time through a modern lens and delivered in a perfectly palatable way. This second series is sweet and nostalgic – but a little more edge wouldn’t go amiss, and on the whole, the show never manages to shine as brightly as its superstar.”
Rachel Sigee, The i

“Joan Rivers at the BBC was mostly just a canter through the archives. But what archives, what a canter. Rivers was like an automated tennis-ball launcher, firing out fearless one-liner gems so fast that often her interviewer missed them. Or pretended to.”
Carol Midgly, The Times

“Over six episodes, a supergroup of film-makers record themselves as they track lions, leopards and cheetahs in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. The results are engrossing, whether it’s the animals that interest you or the humans.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail