Revival; Popmaster

“For all its lightness and speed, and its cleaving to well-tested tropes, it contains moments of real poignancy. The sisters’ love for each other feels lumpy and real. The woman whose husband died one day too soon to qualify for revival and is driven mad by her compounded grief is immediately comprehensible. And the Reviver mother who cannot die and climbs into her son’s coffin at his funeral reminds us that there are horrors far beyond what brain-eating monsters can offer. As the hostility towards Revivers grows in the town, it is the young Reviver girl asking her schoolfriend why, if people are always so sad when someone dies, they aren’t happy that she is alive that stops them from becoming too heavy-handed a representation of racism and contemporary anti-immigrant sentiment and keeps the story supple.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“in the grand contest of Monday night quiz wranglers, there can only be one champion, and that is Ken Bruce with the pitch-perfect Popmaster (More4). Ken, who honed the format over thousands of mornings on Radio 2, dubs his show ‘the nation’s favourite music quiz’ and now presents it daily at 10.30am on Greatest Hits Radio. The TV version has the same brisk pace, with the added pleasure of watching the contestants enjoying both the music and the opportunity to test their knowledge. A perfect balance of obscurities and classics means no one can fail to score something, nor manage to get everything right. The points-scoring system is neatly constructed, ensuring that the lead keeps changing hands. I was smug to recognise Kate Bush’s Rubberband Girl from just a couple of bars, when none of the players knew it. But I’d never heard of Cilla Black’s 1969 release Surround Yourself With Sorrow.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail