The Teacher; The Great Cookbook Challenge; Janet Jackson

“Did you think The Teacher was sometimes theatrical and implausible? Did you find yourself yelling at the screen: ‘But a secondary school teacher would never wear a skirt as short as that in the presence of teenage boys’? Me too. Did you also find it highly entertaining and totally moreish? Hell yes, me too. It’s a delicious set-up in which she will clearly be judged for her chaotic lifestyle rather than on the facts, and I’m tucking into all four courses this week.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“What makes The Teacher so absorbing is its refusal to take the viewer by the hand. The nimble script, co-written by Motherland’s Barunka O’Shaughnessy, keeps you guessing. No straightforward answers were provided in this opening episode – making for a mystery as compelling as it is gripping.”
Ed Power, The i

“The Treacher is one of those dramas in which Channel 5 specialises: a premise that grabs you, a watchable star turn, and a plot so simple that your dog could follow it. The script is by-numbers and doesn’t really merit four episodes (going out over four nights this week) but Smith goes at it with conviction.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Sheridan Smith is never better than when playing complicated, flawed women with hearts of gold. You wouldn’t want her in charge of a pet shop, never mind a school room.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“While lots of recognisable flavours had been chucked into the blender, the not-very-secret ingredient was Oliver. The non-shouty alternative to Gordon Ramsay projected lashings of amiability and, by staying out of the judging, avoided having to show a ruthless side. It’s entirely formulaic, but the meals looked lovely. Channel 4 has whipped up an agreeable, untaxing serving of Monday evening brain-food that goes down a treat.”
Ed Power, The i

“The Great Cookbook Challenge is Jamie Oliver’s attempt to resuscitate the corpse of the TV cookery competition format by making the budding chefs’ prize not a trophy but a publishing deal for a recipe book with Penguin Michael Joseph, which is quite tasty. But it’s still basically another cookery show, just with a different word in the title, and there are already far too many of them.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The show feels sufficiently different to other cooking shows, and the atmosphere is friendly.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Jamie Oliver lost me within the first half hour of The Great Cookbook Challenge. The concept seemed a good one: amateur cooks show off their best recipes, in the hope of landing a publishing deal. But cookery contests only work when the contestants are competing together. Jamie sent them up to the judge’s table one at a time, so that the show became a long sequence of one-off courses and quick criticisms. We needed to see much more from each cook.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Filmed over five years, with access to family and friends and lots of intimate, previously unseen footage, the documentary packs quite a punch. Deftly contextualising the story in America’s black Civil Rights movement, British filmmaker Kevin Macdonald shows how the patriarchal Joe Jackson lifted his family out of poverty and turned them into an entertainment superpower, yet at an emotional cost.”
Neil McCormick, The Telegraph

“The documentary’s real coup is the archive material Jackson and director Ben Hirsch pull from a decade’s worth of home videos shot by her ex-husband, music video director René Elizondo Jr. The trove of seemingly unguarded moments ranges from their holidays to footage of Jackson in hotel rooms on tour, and even Elizondo Jr’s beachside proposal. It’s hard to know whether this documentary will reposition Jackson as a pop pioneer, but it’s absurd that a musician of her stature should have slipped from view.”
Simran Hans, The Guardian