“Startlingly bland.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

THE  5’OCLOCK SHOW WITH PETER ANDRE, CHANNEL 4

“Startlingly bland…this is as triumphantly textureless as sieved porridge.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

RICK STEIN’S FOOD OF THE ITALIAN OPERA, BBC4

“Rick Stein’s take on it… can be boiled down to this. I think there’s a connection between food and opera, though I’m not sure exactly what. Who cares, though – I’m having a lovely time.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“It was hard to decide whether…[it] was playing an elaborate double bluff or if it really thought it was getting away with it. You could say there’s a link of sorts but not enough to make an hour of television.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

CORONATION STREET, ITV1

“It’s hard to feel that fine-grained visual spectacle has ever really been what Coronation Street is about.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

GENIUS OF BRITAIN, CHANNEL 4

“Genius of Britain is the direct descendant of BBC1’s Comedy Connections….[It] would have frothed and fizzed more if the intercutting between stories and presenters had been slightly less clunky. As often with Channel 4, the series lacks quite the budget visually to match its ambition.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

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