Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’Stard; The Bear

“How to describe the talent of Rik Mayall? You could say he was a human tornado, a spinning vortex of manic comedic energy who did not just steal every scene he was in but forcibly robbed it like a galloping highwayman. But that probably wouldn’t quite cover it. Take his brief but high-octane performance as Lord Flashheart in Blackadder, which was a showstopper. Flashheart the swashbuckling shagger, thrusting his groin while saying “Woof!”, only made three appearances but is an unforgettable part of the series. Mayall had the gift of being able to make anything funny, no matter how OTT or puerile, just by pulling a stupid face or battering someone over the head with a saucepan. It is hard to believe he has been dead for 12 years but Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’Stard (Sky/Now) did an excellent job — albeit for only two hours — of bringing him alive. The interviewees were not a gallery of paid talking heads taking us through clips but people who knew him intimately, including his daughters, Bonnie and Rosie, and his son, Sidney, plus friends such as Ben Elton, Nigel Planer and Adrian Edmondson, his professional sidekick for so many years.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“On stage, or at public events, he was the effervescent funnyman, taking it upon himself to ensure he put a smile on everybody’s faces throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, through raucous TV shows The Young Ones and Bottom and rip-roaring live tours with his co-star and close friend Edmondson. In the Sky documentary Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’stard, we discover new insights into Mayall and Edmondson’s early starts, including a double act called Flash Rick and Deaf Ade, which might have changed the very fabric of British comedy if they’d managed to sell it. We see unseen sketches and hear audio testimonies from the man himself; close your eyes, and it’s like he’s in the room with you.”
Jacob Stolworthy, The Independent

“If younger people do watch it, they will get a good idea of the performer and his place in the alternative comedy firmament. They will get a pretty good idea of the man, too – perhaps not so much from verbal testimony but from the collective fondness of the contributors and generosity of spirit suffusing their reminiscences, the enduring love emanating from his children, and Edmondson’s equally enduring longing that the pair could have had a little more time to make things right.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“At the beginning of season three of The Bear, the all-conquering American restaurant drama, head chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) wrote himself a note. It said, simply, “Subtract”, a reference to the importance of reducing unnecessary clutter to find a dish’s true essence. For the fifth and final season of The Bear, its creator, Christopher Storer, has heeded Carmy’s advice. He has gone back to what made the first two seasons of the show arguably the best new drama of the 2020s, returning to a strict focus on the work at the now high-end restaurant and the struggles its staff face to keep the whole thing going.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“The comedy is easily the best thing about this final outing – which is seemingly set on proving once and for all that The Bear is funny – from the cabin-fever silliness that hangs in the air to front-of-house boss Richie’s farcical failure to cancel bookings (everyone has a sob story). When tragedy and comedy are properly fused, it’s even better. I love the subplot in which Natalie, Carmy’s sister and The Bear’s manager, anxiously hands over her baby to her dysfunctional mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) while she works, trying to convince herself her child won’t absorb any matrilineal toxicity (her hot take: “it should be illegal for a mother to have a daughter!”).”
Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian

“It is a show that has outlived its own relevance in record time. (This is thanks, in part, to its new-season-every-summer model, in an age when most of television operates at an interminable slow cook.) But has the series actually done anything to turn viewers away? I seem to be one of the few people who have consistently enjoyed the later seasons of The Bear; when it comes to performance, writing, and tone-setting, Christopher Storer’s show remains one of the best things on TV.”
Louis Chilton, Independent

“Without giving anything away, there are growing signs as the series progresses that the staff have, against all odds, pulled out of the bag something remarkable. It has been an extraordinary, intense five series, but this is the right time to clear the tables, close the doors and quit.”
Carol Midgley, The Times 

“The show is at its strongest when it focuses on the tight plotting and razor-sharp action that it does so well. Consequently, it’s at its weakest when it allows itself to wallow and ponder – and nobody does that better than its erstwhile protagonist. What was Carmy’s suffering for? Ultimately, The Bear doesn’t know.”
Vicky Jessop, The i