Atomic; Dear Viv

“”A bagful of black-market uranium makes great fuel for a thriller. It keeps the excitement ticking along like a Geiger counter… not just a nuclear device but a plot device. That’s all it is, though. Viewers don’t really care about the radio-active cargo. A single child’s life matters much more. Atomic gets this the wrong way round. It’s an action-packed chase adventure, starring Alfie Allen and Shazad Latif as two unlikely friends on the run from a drugs cartel, a special forces unit, Islamist extremists and the secret services. They’ve got hold of a pair of statues that turn out to be crammed full of uranium. Taking it in turns to save each other’s lives, while bickering about philosophy and religion, they zigzag across Africa and the Middle East. It’s frenetic, forgettable fun. But for a short spell early in the first episode, Atomic looked like it could become genuinely gripping.””
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The violence is frequent but – especially for all those who are still in the process of recovering from the harrowing, seemingly endless scenes in The Narrow Road to the Deep North – mercifully cartoonish. The questions that it asks about what it means to live a good life, how people pervert religions, seek redemption or justify taking revenge come increasingly to the fore and add an unexpected heft to the whole, though it can still be enjoyed as a breakneck, Guy-Ritchie-esque drug-caper-cum-buddy-movie, if you want. But Atomic brings with it that ineffable pleasure caused by watching something that someone took just one or two extra passes over, to give its audience an experience just a bit better than you were expecting, just that bit better than it needed to be.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Men are not a hugely catered-for cohort when it comes to TV drama, and I’ve met a fair few controllers and commissioners who appear convinced that we prefer sport and history documentaries and only drama with guns and fighting, while believing most of the scripted costume stuff is for the ladies. However, when we are served this kind of pea-brained nonsense that has all the subtlety of a sub-machinegun blasted straight in your face, who can blame us for switching off?”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Sky’s track record with original drama is patchy, with too many shows that don’t quite hit the mark. But this one passes muster. It was inspired by William Langewiesche’s The Atomic Bazaar, a non-fiction book about the smuggling of nuclear weapons. The action barrels along the dusty roads of North Africa and the Middle East. At just five episodes, it feels lean and never boring. There is a shoot-out or a car chase involving 4x4s approximately once every 15 minutes. The desert locations are striking. Tonally, it’s a bit all over the place – there is a shocking death in episode one, but in episode two there’s comedy as JJ stumbles into a rave. A jihadist on ecstasy is not something you see every day. “He used to be a jihadi, but he’s not anymore. He still kills people, but only bad people now, not everyone like he used to,” Max explains at one point, when introducing his new friend. By and large, the irreverence and the violence rub along together, just as the lead characters do.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“The story moves at a decent clip, but it ought to feel much more plausible considering its roots in reality. It would seem that all the series’ good ideas have been defused long before it reached the screen.”
Ed Power, The i

“Dear Viv is not presumptuous – or reductive – enough to impose a simple narrative on his death. Instead, it offers a warm and nuanced portrait of an artist as the giver of great joy – and of a man whose calling both allayed and intensified his vulnerabilities.”
Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian