Our Girls: The Southport Families; Simon Cowell: The Next Act

“This hour-long tribute did a fine job of honouring these parents’ wishes. It made no mention of the killer’s existence and barely touched on the horrific events of July 29 last year, when the children were stabbed to death at a dance-and-crafting class. Instead, snatches of home video and interviews with the girls’ teachers helped to convey a sense of their personalities — lively, confident, outgoing, all three secure in the love of their happy homes.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The remarkable thing about the parents of nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and six-year-old Bebe King is that they are trying to forge a positive path through tragedy. Hard as it is to believe, this is a film infused with hope and moments of joy.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“These tributes are deeply moving for being both familiar and unique: almost every parent would say similar about their dead child, but no children were exactly like these three, and it’s a privilege to know them a little through home movies and their parents’ words.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“The parents didn’t shy from the pain that heaved from the depths of their hearts as they spoke on camera. The six adults had cemented a special bond, because who else is able to understand what they experienced and are going through? They wanted to create not memorials for their children but legacies.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“The Next Act is made by Cowell’s company and lists him as the executive producer, so we can assume he put his own name in the programme title. In an attempt to make the show feel fresher than month-old milk, he has thrown in a fly-on-the-wall element, in the style of the recent Netflix shows about the Beckhams and suchlike. Watch as Cowell has his hair cut into that strange flat-top, gets hooked up to a vitamin drip (with product placement for the company that supplies it, along with the hotels he stays in), or sits down to a lunch of precisely half a toasted crumpet, prepared by his personal chef. We’re supposed to be charmed by his eccentricity.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Short of Louis Walsh stumbling in to absent-mindedly take everything to deadlock, this is The X Factor. I cannot overstate this enough. It’s Cowell’s one idea, for the billionth time, in slightly different clothes.”
Stuart Heritage, The Guardian

“It seems to be a rite of passage for a certain type of famous, middle-aged person to get their glossy Netflix biography (Robbie Williams, both Beckhams, Arnold Schwarzenegger). Is it now part of the millionaire life cycle? Like all of them, Cowell is driven and tunnel-visioned and seems to come alive mostly when he is working. But I think by giving us two shows — Cowell’s home life and the auditions to find the band members — it risks trying to appeal to two demographics at the same time.”
Carol Midgley, The Times