Significant Other; Arnold; The Crowded Room

“It’s all well-observed and Youssef Kerkour has a soulful, giant teddy bear quality that makes him very watchable. But it’s not funny enough to be a sitcom and not strong enough to be a decent drama.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Significant Other desperately wants to be seen as deep, spinning comedy gold from dark subjects like loneliness and suicide. But it isn’t clever enough to pull this off – instead, it feels bland and ultimately unconcerned with whether its own characters live, die – or even fall in love.”
Emily Baker, The i

“I ended up watching all of Arnold because Schwarzenegger, Cuban cigar in mouth, is undeniably a charismatic one-off, a maniacally competitive perfectionist whose friend described him as the ‘most calculating individual’ he had met. But his brand is at no point challenged. Schwarzenegger has an action comedy series on Netflix, Fubar, and it was never going to put that in jeopardy. So the effect is cosy, but in fairness to the director Lesley Chilcott, it is never boring.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“It’s an entertaining yarn but too stage-managed and soft-soaped to be a truly objective profile. The man himself is admirably candid, whether it’s about his coldness, failings as a husband, fathering a child with his housemaid or groping scandals. However, film-maker Lesley Chilcott’s muscular approach falters when it comes to the last of that trio, neglecting to press him hard enough.”
Michael Hogan, The Telegraph

“The diffuse sense of unease and confusion is well done. But it goes on for a long, long time. The Crowded Room is a 10-episode series and the evasiveness, hints – a missing twin brother, abuse of various kind, hidden potential for violence – and drip-feeding of information start to seem wilfully long before the true unravelling of the mystery.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian