The Secret Genius of Modern Life; The Bondsman

“When Professor Hannah Fry said she would be looking at things in’frankly obscene detail’, she wasn’t kidding. This is what sets her documentaries apart. They are history lessons with twists and turns, and she is a science presenter that you trust because you know she is clever and genuinely enthused by this stuff but not in that annoying, breathless, ‘excited TV presenter’ way — by which I mean, obviously, Gregg Wallace when he did Inside the Factory. Fry is the anti-Wallace.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“It was consolatory to find that Hannah Fry had also been in two minds about doing one of her excellent tech-splanations of air fryers, and for the same reasons – would it just be jumping on the hype train? Luckily, Fry decided to give the world what it wants – air fryers are now in one in three of our kitchens; the market has spoken, and her history of the device was perfectly done.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“There is nothing very new to see in The Bondsman. How much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy Kevin Bacon (laconic, hard-bitten Kevin Bacon, not Tremors Kevin Bacon and not Footloose Kevin Bacon), how much you enjoy tales of demonic possession in a small town in southern America and how much you enjoy the sound of partly severed heads, blown-out tracheas and bloodied fingers. I am seven degrees of separation from liking this last aspect.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The Bondsman is a rampant gothic gore-fest, the camera lingering lovingly on every severed windpipe and gratuitous disembowelment. It is heavy guitar music and ravens on gravestones. It is neither subtle nor in any way edifying, but then it is not intended to be. Bacon, who is looking more and more like Richard Bacon with every passing EE ad, comes with just the right level of irony for this kind of thing. The premise is daft, his character is dafter and he can barely conceal the smirk that says he knows as much.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph