Fallout; Mozart: Genius for Hire; What’s The Monarchy For?

“Those are a lot of plates to keep spinning but Fallout has always had a hopscotching narrative structure, confident that audiences could keep up with its constant parade of weirdos and tangle of plotlines. Season two draws more directly from its gaming source material – notably 2010’s admired Fallout: New Vegas – but remains pleasingly dense with jokes, splatter and slapstick.”
Graeme Virtue, The Guardian

“The best thing about series one was the double act of Lucy and the Ghoul – the latter, a sort of undead Clint Eastwood haunted by the memory of his family perishing in a nuclear conflagration. Their unlikely chemistry is once again where much of the fun is to be had – though MacLachlan brings a scene-stealing energy as Lucy’s villainous father, who has fled from his daughter to continue his mad scheme to purify the Earth by force.”
Ed Power, The Telegraph

“Mozart: Genius for Hire (Sky Arts/Now) was that rare beast in modern television: an arts documentary that didn’t talk down to its audience. Far too many of the recent crop feature dumb performances and scripts that assume appealing to the casual viewer means patronising them. This programme spent time with the music and, while there was a smattering of acting, it came in the form of excerpts from the letters of Wolfgang and his father, Leopold, read with depth and verve by the actors Matthew Broome and David Harewood, respectively. No need here for folk in wigs and tights scratching parchments with quill pens. This used the words to serve the music.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“If anyone deserves to face charges of rewriting history, it ought to be Dimbleby himself, who revealed himself to be unexpectedly thin-skinned. Talking about his father, Richard, the BBC voice of the 1953 Coronation, he said, peevishly, ‘My father was once called the high priest of the monarchy cult by a critic.’ It’s obvious that jibe still rankles. ‘Is that a fair description,’ he demanded of former BBC director general Greg Dyke, ‘not just of my father, but of the BBC, that we are the temple of the monarchy cult?’ Dyke agreed it was jolly unfair. But the real unfairness was in the show’s relentless criticism of the Royal Family, who were painted as too privileged, too deaf to public opinion, and altogether outdated.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail