Amadeus; Beyond Paradise; Wild Horses, The Rockies And Me

“The formula for Amadeus, airing nightly till Christmas, is simple: take the multiple Oscar-winning 1984 movie of the same name as a template and turn every dial up to 11. This version is louder, cruder, gorier, angrier, flashier and raunchier.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Obsession, reputation, drama, romance, and with music – literally, in this programme’s eyes – to die for. Add to that a heavy dose of period intrigue and you’ve got the perfect drama for the Christmas holidays.”
Emily Bootle, The i

“The drama’s presiding genius is Joe Barton, who has previously traded in crime (Giri/Haji) and twisty thrillers (The Lazarus Project). Something of their generic DNA lingers as Salieri’s deathbed confession is fashioned into a theological whodunnit. Barton can justifiably play fast and loose with the facts when Shaffer did the same. The plot gives more agency to Mozart’s neglected wife Constanze (Gabrielle Creevy), who has Figaro-esque fun with her husband’s pupil, and the lashing tongue of Leopold Mozart (Jonathan Aris) stirs big daddy issues into the pot.”
Jasper Rees, Telegraph

“The first glimpse of Will Sharpe as Mozart in Amadeus was him cheerfully vomiting in the street due to a wine hangover. Before long he was having grunty sex with an opera singer on a groaning table of delicacies, ejaculating onto a cake stand of whipped cream dainties. The camera lingered to show us where it landed. Well. This Amadeus clearly knows it has its work cut out to make its mark when that very famous film of the same name exists and did rather well for itself, winning eight Oscars. So it has gone for extravagance, exuberance and occasional outrageousness. Does it work? Definitely.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“[Paul] Bettany as Salieri does well with a script that offers him no chance to compete with F Murray Abraham’s Oscar-winning performance. [Will] Sharpe as Mozart is, likewise, hampered, but even controlling for the script’s banality, his performance is a thin, half-hearted thing. His Mozart looks and sounds for all the world like Richard Ayoade’s Moss in The IT Crowd – effectively a milquetoast with a drink problem, which in turn makes Salieri’s “repulsive creature” sound like an overreaction and his abandonment of God over choosing to let genius reside there faintly ridiculous. It makes you hope that 2026 will be the year of new thoughts, new dramas and no more reworkings. Especially not of Amadeus.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Much more than the Australian Death in Paradise spinoff, Return to Paradise, the world of Beyond Paradise now feels fully established and ready to supersede the mothership. Indeed, some episodes from the previous series proved more popular than those of the Caribbean-based original. It has a family of endearing regular characters, including the motherly Margo (Felicity Montagu) and the office dunce, Kelby. Fortunately, from a typecasting perspective, Llewellyn’s role in the Channel 4 sitcom Big Boys proves he has a greater range than Kelby and his somewhat spare-part character in Derry Girls.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“Buchanan made it his mission to get as close as possible, mimicking the horses’ body language to put them at their ease. At one point, crouched in the grass, he even gave his own mane a shake. The 53-year-old Scot has quietly established a unique niche in the BBC’s schedules, by developing a low-key, deeply personal style very different to the corporation’s traditional, big-budget wildlife epics. Though he has worked on David Attenborough’s hugely ambitious series such as Planet Earth II, Buchanan comes into his own when operating on a smaller scale.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail