“Serious, proper drama.” Read on for the full verdict on last night’s TV.

The Street

The Street, BBC1
“The Street, like Clocking Off before it, has a near perfect format, likely to appease both critics and channel controllers by being a series of one-off plays that looks like a series. Its only drawback is that its premise is almost always gloomy and you need to force yourself through the first dour 10 minutes. I have never watched an episode yet, however, that did not deliver rich rewards.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

The Street, BBC1
“This anthology drama about a single street in Manchester is now in its third series, so the concept – each episode a mini morality play focusing on a different resident – ought to be wearing thin by now. But unlike Monday Monday, Jimmy McGovern’s script made good use of its enviable cast.”
Tim Walker, The Independent

The Street, BBC1
“Clang, this is serious drama, written by Jimmy McGovern… Clang, the subject matter will be the British working classes and there will be messages about morality… Clang, fine actors will queue up to deliver fine performances… Clang, get your Baftas ready… Clang, the misery will be relentless… That’s not meant as a complaint, The Street is serious, proper drama.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

The Real Full Monty, Sky 1
“Though it was too boring to really be offensive, the unpleasant cynicism behind the production company smugly putting this nasty little charade together – literally ordering up a bit of poverty porn – was an unpleasant taste of things to come in the next few years of recession.”
Andrea Mullaney, The Scotsman

Monday Monday, ITV1
“Perhaps the business-speak was deliberately hackneyed, but Butterworth’s is no Wernham Hogg, and after a while the office clichés seemed merely an excuse for the lack of any original dialogue.”
Tim Walker, The Independent

Monday Monday, ITV1
“Monday Monday is hopeless – lame and laboured, tired and predictable, it’s as if The Office never happened.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Sky Arts Theatre Live!, Sky Arts
“I have hopes that Sky Arts Theatre Live!, which launched withthe first of five one-off plays last week, will shame the BBC into doing more. For me, Jackie Kay’s Mind Away, about an Alzheimic woman whose daughter spins a fantasy about where her mother’s mind has gone, did not quite work and certainly not as television. It was not helped by the sycophantic laughter of a studio audience. But the experiment is brave and the play was ambitious.”Andrew Billen, The Times

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