Revelations: How to Find GodChannel 4

There wasn’t anything particularly amazing about the script, or the direction, of Jon Ronson’s film about the evangelical Christian Alpha course (28 June, 7pm), but for his access alone he must receive ten house points from the school of television critics.

The Church of England arm of the franchise is surprisingly defensive about its most successful conversion tool, as Ronson found out when [...]

This documentary-cum-reality show began life two years ago as an execrable BBC3 series called Filthy Rich and Homeless. At the time, I tried my best to stamp on it, hard. Rich people pretending to be homeless, then coming over all tearful at how demeaning begging is? Repulsive. I was disgusted.

Naturally, I thought – big head – that I’d seen the wretched thing off. But, no. Unbelievably, the BBC brought [...]

Do politicians watch any television other than Newsnight? I ask only because, at last, writers are beginning to process some of the more distressingly bizarre political decisions taken since 1997. This feels good, but it would feel even better if one could be sure that a certain Anthony Charles Lynton Blair were tucked up with his tray supper, too.

Watching Peter Bowker’s excellent drama Occupation, screened on BBC1 over three [...]

How the wheel turns. I first heard about Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire a few months ago, when I interviewed its star Matt Lucas. “It’s Blackadder and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with some overtones of The Lord of the Rings by way of Red Dwarf,” he said, when I asked for a summary. “I’m one of the baddies, Chancellor Dongalor.”

As it turns out, this [...]

I was part of the so-called “Boyle backlash”, or at least I would have been if I had actually bothered to vote for someone else. For me, this year’s Britain’s Got Talent was not unlike a general election: the choice was so dispiriting that I felt I’d be better off sitting on my hands (or, to be precise, using them to push peanuts into my mouth).

I was troubled by [...]

In the past few days, I’ve developed an obsessional loathing for a man I used rather to like. Yes, I speak of Simon Schama, historian and cheese soufflé-maker extraordinaire (in case you hadn’t noticed, he touts his recipe for cheese soufflé around as though he were Brillat-Savarin himself).

How did this happen? Well, the truth is that my feelings of disdain started even before watching his film about John [...]

Something tells me that not many social workers will have enjoyed The Unloved (Sunday 17 May, 9pm, Channel 4), the actor Samantha Morton’s directorial debut, though their cries of indignation have perhaps been muffled by the origins of the script, which drew heavily on the director’s own experiences.

Placed in local authority care as a baby, Morton remained in the system until she was 16. Her film, which told [...]

It is intensely annoying when journalists tell their readers about all the famous people they know. But I just can’t resist. I was at college with Charles Hazlewood, the BBC’s current music hunk, and all I can say is: even back then, we knew he would be famous.

While the rest of us were listening to the Wedding Present, and pretending to like them, Charles – I won’t call [...]

Of all the thriller’s many conventions, surely the most affected is also the least dramatic: I mean the way that, when the protagonists call one another on the telephone, they never say hello, or goodbye, and nor do they introduce themselves.

Every character knows every other character simply by dint of the sound of their voice, even if they have only met once before, for five seconds in a dark [...]

Why did Simon Thurley allow English Heritage, the august body of which he is chief executive, to co-operate with the BBC on a documentary series (Fridays, 9pm)? My guess is that he made the mistake of thinking that he would be in control, and that he and his organisation would emerge with their reputations intact, or even enhanced. But the truth is that you can’t control television – any reality [...]