Bancroft; Nigella’s Christmas Table; White Right: Meeting the Enemy

“Bancroft is like a cocktail of a lot of other police dramas. Almost as if they looked at what had done well recently and said, we’ll have a bit of that, that and that. It’s not going to surprise, or keep you awake at night worrying, or suck you in like Line of Duty. But it’s fizzy and crisp and slips down without having to think too much.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“I am a fan of Sarah Parish. Yet even her talents couldn’t make a silk purse out of what was often a sow’s ear of a plot. If you thought that what happened last night stretched your credulity, I’ve watched all four episodes and mine eventually snapped like perished knicker elastic.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The script, which may yet turn into a conspiracy thriller about the deep state and the miners’ strike, could do with taking a few deep calming breaths. It’s written by Kate Brooke (Mr Selfridge) but its gender politics felt trapped in a time warp. It’s as if Jane Tennison never happened.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“What sort of tough single Northern mum doesn’t know how to wash dishes? Surely her mother taught her to submerge the crockery in hot, sudsy water! Scrubbing it under a tap will just spray flecks of pizza all over that lovely kitchen. Suddenly I could no longer believe in this bomb-dodging, fire-fighting, knife-wielding, skull-crushing copper. It all felt just a tad … far-fetched.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“She reminds me of Suranne Jones as Doctor Foster. In terms of plots that require clever, successful, strong women to act like lunatics, the two shows have things in common. It’s delectably tangled and it might be a good week’s viewing.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Having just made us mortals feel utterly inadequate about our kitchens/utensils/friends/life, now she’s doing the same with our Christmases. Well, I’m going to do it this year, I’m going to be more Nigella. Everyone will come and feast and laugh. The skin on the ducks and the logs on the fire will crackle. The negronis, the conversation, the pomegranate jewels in the sprouts, will sparkle.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Liberated from the half-hour format and the city, Lawson went feral, and revelled in her favourite kitchen obsessions: tactile squelching, and stabbing things. Lawson’s appealingly delirious edge kept the sybaritic At My Table relatable to anyone who will have to rictus-grin their way through cooking timings and interfering in-laws.”
Laura Snapes, The Telegraph

“Despite an impending dinner party, Nigella had time to walk her labradoodle through the woods, before showing us how to make devilled eggs and a hotpot that sizzled with ‘all the flavours of medieval Christmas feasting’. It looked deliciously festive. But one thing was odd: the farm was bedecked with thousands of lights, yet no one was there to greet Nigella when she arrived. Who put up the decorations? Was it the dog?”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The nation’s favourite domestic goddess has entirely embraced her camp aesthetic in her most recent series, and this over-the-top Christmas special slathered it on in spades. It was all ludicrously overblown, and you didn’t for one minute buy Nigella as the Queen of the Countryside walking wistfully through crooked lanes with dogs bounding at her heels or gazing awestruck at village light displays. Yet for all that, it was also glorious, gaudy fun, like your average cookery show ramped up to 10, then sprinkled with stardust and tinsel.”
Sarah Hughes, The i

“Deeyah Khan is an extraordinary film-maker. In White Right: Meeting the Enemy she interviewed American far-righters and neo-Nazis and again reached the parts that others do not. Khan uses hard and soft skills to discover what drives such hatred and forces people to face her, their so-called enemy: it gets under their skin and yields results.”
Carol Midgley, The Times