Michael Jackson: The Trial; Our Yorkshire Pub Rescue

“Before the glossy biopic, the grubby counter-narrative. April sees the cinematic release of Michael, the $155m film drama about the late pop superstar Michael Jackson. It’s a film that co-producer John Branca, also Jacko’s attorney, believes will outperform the $900m-grossing Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. But prior to that, there’s Michael Jackson: The Trial – Channel 4’s small-screen retelling of Jackson’s 2005 trial in California for alleged child molestation, supplying a minor with alcohol and false imprisonment. Jackson was acquitted on all charges, and you won’t be seeing any of this on the silver screen. But the taste that these four episodes leave is, well, bad. Really, really bad.”
James Hall, Telegraph

“If the sensationalist media hunted Jackson across news cycles like some modern-day Frankenstein’s monster, as is the impression from this series, the singer of course had only himself to blame. And it’s when you arrive at the footage in episode two of Arvizo’s interview in 2003 — where we see the teenager describe in detail Jackson’s sexual abuse of him — that one’s response inevitably enters more revulsed territory. That’s before we get to a former Jackson PR’s recalling his discovery of a “naturist magazine” among the singer’s belongings, its adverts for videos of “naked kids” allegedly marked for order. What a swamp of dysfunction, accusations and rebuttals. The series inevitably has a whiff of picking at scabs, yet that’s the thing with Jackson — it’s hard to stop watching even as you start to feel the need for a shower.”
James Jackson, The Times 

“Leaving Neverland remains the most effective résumé of that apparent duality, and of how – in the case of Wade Robson and James Safechuck – their memories of the singer’s dream-like ranch would take on an infernal quality. Michael Jackson: The Trial isn’t as stylised nor as groundbreaking – many of the people here have been telling their stories for decades, be it in books, podcasts, blogs or otherwise. Yet where Channel 4’s latest series triumphs is in collating these accounts from both sides, and letting you decide what is more plausible, as well as spotlighting details that can’t easily be explained away. And, of course, there are the tapes: recordings of Jackson from 2000 and 2001, many of which have never been heard before. They’re not definitive proof of any wrongdoing, but they’re certainly alarming. In one clip, Jackson declares: “If you told me right now … ‘Michael, you could never see another child’ … I would kill myself.””
Hannah J Davies, The Guardian

“The producers were clearly hoping for shots of Jon, a perpetually nervous man, getting stuck into building work. That joke worked well for about five minutes, as he struggled to don a hi–viz jacket and then wielded a sledgehammer like a nun with a croquet mallet. Lifting old roof tiles off a toilet block scheduled for demolition, he gurned and squealed at the lurking spiders. But the volunteers soon tired of assistance from a media luvvie, and sent him to get the lunch order from a sandwich shop. That flummoxed him: they didn’t do vegan rolls. The rest of the hour was filler, as he visited a brewery, met a few locals and (for reasons that weren’t clear) helped out on a chicken farm. Are vegans allowed to collect eggs?”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Maill