Mr Loverman; Michael Mosley; Our Farm Next Door

“This is a different, spikier, much braver tale about the Windrush generation than usually makes it on to our screens. There is closeness, vibrancy, violence and sorrow in the mix, plus an examination of many forms of love and how they can either strengthen or warp under pressure. It is more of a mood piece than an action-packed drama, with closeups of human life, with all its exquisite agonies and joys, portrayed by actors at the top of their game.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Mr Loverman is a wonderfully complex series that weaves together issues of marital breakdown, intergenerational conflict, infidelity, racism and sexuality. But while it is faithful to the original, it doesn’t quite capture its magic. It is dragged down by its reliance on voiceovers to convey the inner monologues of characters – they’re more distracting than insightful. What lifts the show above lots of what’s on television right now are the utterly captivating central performances by Lennie James and Sharon D Clark.”
Jeff Ingold, The i

“This is not a heavy drama, a feeling bolstered by the fact that the episodes are only half an hour long. Yes, it tackles homophobia in the Caribbean community, and the conservative attitudes of Carmel’s churchgoing friends. But there is an air of gentle comedy too, especially in Barrington’s bemusement at the lifestyle of his fashion stylist daughter.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Intertwined with Barrington’s relationships with his two adult daughters and grandson, this is a tender, painful portrait of an older homosexual love affair in a drama that shows how bigotry makes people waste years of their lives.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“When so many depictions of repressed homosexuality – especially within ethnic minority communities – are marked by relentless suffering, it is refreshing to see a show embrace its characters’ own autonomy. Autonomy to make decisions – good and bad – and forge their own path. Mr Loverman is a slim but moving testament to the enduring power of self-acceptance.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent

“It’s been nearly five months since his death, aged 67, in Greece, but it is still sad to hear the narrator, Sara Cox, talk about him in the past tense, that he ‘touched and changed many of our lives’ and with his ‘straightforward relatable tips he was a man on a mission to make our lives better’. It’s never not poignant to see Mosley’s wife, Clare, in these posthumous TV shows interacting happily with her husband, this time watching him sit in a tub of cold water in their garden, the two of them laughing.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“This two-part television special, which now also acts as a tribute to the presenter who died earlier this year, is based on his popular podcast that extolled the benefits of yoga, reading a poem, gardening and listening to music. Happily, I can manage all of those, and you probably can too.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“His wife, Clare, looked on in bemusement as Michael tackled yet another of his counter-intuitive experiments, in his final series Just One Thing, filmed shortly before his death on holiday on the Greek island of Symi in June. This one, aimed at bringing down blood pressure while raising feel-good hormones, might have been less wacky than some of his enthusiasms — infesting himself with tapeworms, for example, or sewing a tennis ball into the back of his pyjamas.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“It’s reasonably diverting, with lovely All Creatures Great and Small scenery (albeit with worse weather), and it’s always nice to see children benefiting from being raised to roam free in the great outdoors. But there’s another problem: we’ve been so spoiled by the brilliant Clarkson’s Farm that all other rural fly-on-the-wall shows seem dull by comparison.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph