World on Fire; Right to Fight; Becoming Elizabeth

“In the wrong hands, World on Fire could well be very boring – the Second World War is not exactly new narrative territory. But writer Peter Bowker makes both the grand narratives and the minutiae equally vivid and stirring, and it becomes impossible not to be enraptured by at least one of them.”
Emily Baker, The i

“It sometimes leans towards the soapy side, such as in an awkward family gathering between Harry, Kasia, Lois and Robina, filled with pining looks. But its occasional soapiness works in its favour: it juggles its elements well, never seeming crass or imbalanced. It is compelling storytelling that flies by quickly demanding – and earning – the viewer’s emotional investment in its characters almost immediately.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“The drama feels at its most refreshingly different when telling these other stories in Hindi or German or Polish. When we’re brought back to Lois, things feel disappointingly pedestrian. We ended on a cliffhanger in which she may or may not have died during a bombing raid while trying to rescue an old man’s set of false teeth.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“The problem is that World on Fire, which has always been well-written, was already unwieldy in the epicness of its reach, spanning Britain, Germany, Poland, France and now Egypt, and has to re-engage the audience after a lengthy hiatus. Through no fault of its own, momentum has been lost. However, there were some excellent scenes, especially in the Manchester tearoom when Kasia (Zofia Wichlacz) had cakes with her two brothers and came face to face with pig-ugly prejudice.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Writer Peter Bowker’s sweeping ambition is to depict the many arenas of the war. Last time round, that meant Paris and Warsaw, and no doubt the Eastern Front and D-Day lie ahead. Whether we’ll go as far as Burma and Japan, we’ll have to wait and see. Our hero Harry is off to North Africa, where he’ll find the Desert Rats fighting against Germans, Italians and an inadequate budget for special effects.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Right to Fight tells the story [of the women who changed boxing] brilliantly, helped by the fact that every one of its subjects bursts with the kind of energy and charisma that is a gift to the camera. They have backstories, anecdotes and attitude that could fill a programme 10 times as long without it flagging for a moment.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“First shown on the Lionsgate+ streaming channel last year, it features wonderful costumes, all fur collars and acres of velvet. If you enjoy the spectacle of messengers galloping out of castle courtyards on frosty mornings, this is the sort of period drama you’ll love. But the script is lukewarm sludge. Characters repeatedly explain their complex family connections and court politics to each other, or spout fake Shakespeare.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail