Jamie’s 5 Ingredient Meals; The Reckoning; Endurance

“As he stands isolated in his quiet, lonely kitchen, gamely urging us to keep calm and carry on cooking with basic supermarket produce, Jamie’s 5 Ingredient Meals has the air of an educational state broadcast made to raise morale after a national catastrophe – inevitably, perhaps, because that’s more or less what it is.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“I am not sure I would call vanilla paste a ‘store cupboard staple’ as he suggested in the opening programme and you slightly sensed in that moment Jamie the high-end chef trying to break free of the thrifty simplicity of it all. But his joy in what he does was infectious as he stood before us in what we assumed was his kitchen dressed in his trademark jeans, T-shirt and shirt and created a makeshift rotisserie chicken, the sticky juices falling seductively down.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Naturally each episode has five recipes. Four from Oliver, one from a guest chef, in this case José Pizarro’s recipe for something called zorongollo which is easier to prep than say. Pizarro puts salt in the water when he boils his eggs. ‘Don’t ask me why,’ he said, ‘but I have to say it works.’ As of course does this watchable confection of five easy pieces.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“Anyone who is interested in The Reckoning will probably have binged it all on iPlayer, but some may have preferred to space out the compelling grimness of Steve Coogan’s masterly performance and watch it as it’s broadcast. If the Bafta juries can get their heads round the idea that they are not giving an award to the man he played, Coogan should clean up.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“The actor insisted he didn’t want ‘to render him some sort of pantomime villain’. But that’s exactly what enabled Savile to get away with openly monstrous behaviour: he magnified every movement, as though he was on stage and playing to the back row. Coogan’s performance does the opposite. His Savile is constantly on guard, checking people’s reactions and calculating. If you’re watching The Reckoning and asking yourself, ‘How did Savile get away with it for so long?’ this version doesn’t show you the real answer.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Endurance: Race To The Pole has been a terrific piece of boy’s own telly, celebrating the gung-ho recklessness of Britain’s golden age of adventure.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail