TV critics' verdict on programmes - including BBC2’s Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Christmas - broadcast on 19 December 2007

Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Christmas, BBC2
“I wish I understood what this programme was trying to do to me. Inspire? Intimidate? Leave me reaching, with a relieved sense of the futility of even trying to cook, for the pot noodle?”
Robert Hanks, The Independent

Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Christmas, BBC2
“The great thing about Heston Blumenthal’s cooking is that you don’t feel morally obliged to have a go yourself. It is something akin to sword swallowing.”
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian

Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Christmas, BBC2
“How closely did you follow the recipes? Is anyone right now lighting sorbets, flavoured delicately with tobacco and leather essence?”
Tim Teeman, The Times

Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Christmas, BBC2
“It summed up everything that’s rotten about Christmas - the excessive spending, obsession with superficial details, the whole fake heartiness of the thing. Plus, for good measure, a bunch of unconnected celebs pretending to be friends while being sprayed with imitation snow.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

Last Chance Driving School, ITV1
“The parade of tears, embarrassment, unjustified cockiness and final triumphs was as watchable as these familiar dramas tend to be; but I wondered whether the programme wasn’t missing the point: the best things for these people would have been a new bicycle each and a few words of encouragement to use it every day.”
Robert Hanks, The Independent

Last Chance Driving School, ITV1
“Unfortunately, even measured against its own unambitious standards, last night’s programme just wasn’t very well made. Quite often, in fact, it felt as if Last Chance Driving School must have been originally commissioned as a full series, before someone at ITV saw sense -and ordered a one-off documentary instead.”
James Walton, The Telegraph

Last Chance Driving School, ITV1
“It was also nightmarishly long, so every microdrama blew up into full-size squalls.”
Tim Teeman, The Times

Runaway, BBC1
“Runaway was still a sharp, unsensational and even sympathetic account of Laura’s plight - as well as a powerfully concrete example of the kind of problems we tend to hear about only in the abstract. It also confirmed that it’s much easier to blame social workers than to be one.”
James Walton, The Telegraph

Growing Up Skint, BBC3
“These were no sob stories, and the kids interviewed were articulate, generous and realistic about their precarious situations - resulting in a film that was oddly cheering.”
Sam Richards, The Telegraph

My Boyfriend, the Sex Tourist, Channel 4
“Perhaps it was good that the women weren’t portrayed as victims, but whether the film was being entirely honest is doubtful.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

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