Pam & Tommy; The Tinder Swindler; RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World; Lazy Susan

“It’s a fun opener but doesn’t showcase what will become a warm, funny, intelligent and rather moving drama, with astonishing performances from Lily James as Anderson and Sebastian Stan as Lee. They each achieve the feat of uncannily resembling – aesthetically, vocally, and in every mannerism – the real-life people, without descending into mimicry.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Pam & Tommy seems overwhelmed by the story’s sheer salaciousness. If agreeably riotous and often hilarious, it misses the mark dramatically. Yet though the performances are full of sparkle – Anderson and Lee are brought rollickingly to life by Lily James and Sebastian Stan – they also lean into caricature. Anderson is portrayed as a real-life Jessica Rabbit, Lee as a crazy-eyed rocker. After a while, their company becomes exhausting.”
Ed Power, The Telegraph

“It makes an interesting companion piece to the BBC’s A Very British Scandal, which used a miserable marriage with a notorious sex act at its heart to tell a wider story about class and gender relations in Britain after the war. But for all Pam & Tommy’s wry evocation of the mid-Nineties, complete with a gratifying soundtrack, on the evidence of the first episode, it sits a bit uneasily. Its pretensions to commentary on the Nineties are undermined by a curious mix of comedy, drama and period piece.”
Ed Cumming, The Independent

“What unfolds in this one-off Netflix documentary is a juicy, jaw-dropping true-crime story which beggars belief. The fascinating, fiendishly gripping film is all the better for its linear narrative – no tricksy timelines here – and 114-minute duration. A punchy, pacy one-off makes a refreshing change from the streaming service’s habit of spinning out true-crime cases over multiple episodes. Romance, revenge, a reptilian villain, a multi-million dollar scam – it all adds up to an irresistible story.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph

“Despite the great yarn at its centre, as a film, The Tinder Swindler sometimes lapses into the self-indulgence common to so many modern documentaries, with endless shadowy reconstructions and a heart-tugging soundtrack. At nearly two hours, it is at least half an hour too long.”
Ed Cumming, The Independent

“This snappy new spin-off of the franchise may just be the energy boost fans (and this channel) have been waiting for. The banter between queens was equal parts droll and informative, delving into cultural differences and exploring drag from alternate perspectives in a way we’ve not yet seen on Drag Race. Confused concept aside, this strong premiere suggests that by going global, RuPaul’s Drag Race may finally become the Olympics of drag.”
Michael Chakraverty, The i

“Lazy Susan is fresh, stupid-but-clever and in no way going to scare the puritan horses, despite featuring a fair bit of cross-dressing. Celeste Dring and Freya Parker are clearly very talented performers, or rather actors because despite only laughing at two sketches out of seven in the first 15-minute show, I kept watching on through the next episodes, oddly mesmerised by their various creations.”
James Jackson, The Times