“When someone so entertaining leaves so early, one always worries whether those who remain will be as good value.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

“Despite myself, I always love The Apprentice’s first episode. All that youthful ritualised boasting before they are thumped by the comedy boxing glove on a stick of experience. By episode two I get sick of the little horrors and yearn for Sugar to whimsically fire them all in one go.”
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian

“When someone so entertainingly bumptious leaves so early, one always worries whether those who remain will be as good value.”
Andrew Billen , The Times

“It has the same premise as Jamie’s Dream School, namely if there’s a social problem celebrities can’t solve, we programme-makers are putting fingers in our ears so we don’t have to hear about it.”
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian

“Part postmodern joke, part Z-list parody, it’s an idea so perfectly improbable that a sharp tumble towards tasteless seems inevitable. And yet, somehow, it worked. Sort of… it was also, unexpectedly, insightful.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

THE COUNTRY HOUSE REVEALED, BBC2

“[Dan Cruikshank] is so posh that the chirrupy bluestocking Lucy worsley of If Walls Could Talk does cameos for him.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It was almost impossible to follow. For one thing, everyone who’d ever lived at Wraxall seemed to be called Henry. Or Walter.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

Topics