A neat British B crime movie built around a ticking clock. How much air is there in a sealed bank vault? Darren Nesbitt has remarkable star power as a bank robber with a conscience. It's incredibly tense, and frustrating, to see the police plod their way towards a rescue, frequently while getting in the way of Nesbitt’s Griff who is trying to do the right thing.
When posh people discover unspoiled country and tell their pals, it gets spoiled. Based on a true story, and on real people, the inherent metaphors seem too good to be true. Louie, the simple country girl who is tarnished by her association with worldly artists and fine folk from London, personifies the Norfolk countryside as it is turned into a tourist resort: “No, no, you are wrong – she is not from Poppyland, she is Poppyland.” This all feels very…
A pretty good effort from Mark Gatiss. It's at its best in the nightmarish, woozy first half. But as things ramp up, we see things clearly that should be glimpsed or implied and that undercuts the sense of unease. I just wish these modern ghost stories for Christmas made more of stillness, silence and the landscape; and relied less on brash colour schemes and loud music.
I don’t do this often but please indulge a multi-paragraph essayette on this one.
The BBC played some dangerous games with pastiche and parody in this period, as a generation of writers, directors and producers who’d grown up parked in front of the TV, absorbing its conventions, came of age.
In 1987 the family-friendly mainstream magician Paul Daniels faked his own death on a live Halloween special of his BBC show. The episode ended with apparently real confusion on the…
