Tip Toe; Clarkson’s Farm

“For all its bleakness and anger, there are many moments of community and humanity in Tip Toe – scenes of what is often described as “queer joy”. The cheer and solidarity among the gays and dolls at Leo’s bar provide a stark counterpoint to the heteronormative misery of Clive’s life. It’s significant, too, that these men are neighbours. For bigots like Clive, it literalises the fact that queer people exist and live in the same society as him. For people like Leo, it’s hatred, and danger, that sleeps just a few metres down the road.”
Louis Chilton, The Independent

“It lacks the discipline that made his other state of the historical/future nation pieces, Years and Years or It’s a Sin, so powerful and moving, but the strands begin to interweave, momentum builds and if the extremity of the conclusion still doesn’t quite ring true, everyone has worked hard to get it as close to authentic and emotionally credible as possible. Cumming keeps the spiky, idiosyncratic Leo just the right side of likable and relatable and Morrissey does his usual magnificent lot by showing just a little. It’s three and a half stars, rounded up because of all the good and great stuff gone before.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“We know that [Russell T] Davies enjoys the big swing but this polemic also works because he gives the new menace recognisable human form in Morrissey’s terrifying Clive. Driven by online misinformation, his hatred towards Leo (and possibly himself) is delicately evoked in an early exchange when he refuses to allow Leo to be alone in the house with his 16-year-old son. In a later sequence where both households are furtively masturbating (so Russell T, that, thank God Mary Whitehouse isn’t still around), Clive is watching hardcore violence. We know where this is going and at times it feels as subtle as a brick in the face. But when Davies steps down from his pulpit and lets his characters breathe, his storytelling is visionary, devastating, passionate and humane. And we should listen.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Quite often, Davies simply barrels over plot holes like a tractor driver with a laptop. Morrissey’s Clive is so unreconstructed he’s barely a blueprint of a man. Most of the tragedy in Tip Toe could have been averted had Leo just got on with changing the locks, as anyone else would have done in the face of a toxic, homophobic neighbour who he had – for some reason – given a key. That doesn’t stop it from being a tragedy, however, and a deeply poignant one at that. Television writers will tell you that they never want to come across as preachy, and that good drama should ask teasing questions and then step away. The sense in Tip Toe is that Davies is done with this kind of pussyfooting around, and is up for a scrap. It makes for a drama that takes wrong turns but is never less than bold and, in the round, deeply stirring. TV polemic is back, loud and proud.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“There’s no writer on television better than Russell T. Davies at devising brilliant and original ideas, and wrecking them with heavy-handed execution Davies has an instinctive knack for a story. But he can’t help overloading it with ugly, badly constructed diatribe. The result is like dumping a bungalow on a motorboat. Inevitably, the whole lot sinks. With a lighter, defter touch, Tip Toe could be a chilling drama shot through with comedy. Sadly, every time he gets up to speed, Davies slams on the brakes to deliver another wodge of preaching dialogue.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Even non-farmers know that agriculture is cyclical. Broadly speaking, each year, the same things happen again and again. This is both a blessing and a curse for Clarkson’s Farm (Amazon Prime), the TV show. The series, one of Amazon’s tent-pole hits, can cleave to the pattern of the seasons, telling gratifying stories of sowing and reaping, gestation and new birth. But it also means that, as the show goes on, it has to avoid repeating itself. There are only so many times you can laugh at someone failing to herd sheep or slipping in a cow pat. (Admittedly, I can laugh at someone slipping in a cow pat quite a few times.) For series five, Clarkson’s Farm opens with perhaps the ultimate bombshell, to borrow the JC parlance, of its star nearly dying.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“While there are moments when you feel he is winging it, Clarkson winging it is still deliciously funny, such as when he settles down for a healthy dairy-based breakfast and rails against eating “knob cheese”. On their road trip he discovers that Cooper’s middle name is Wayne, a fact clearly too amusing to leave on the cutting-room floor. And there are enough scenes of camaraderie among the contributors to lift anyone’s spirits. Who knew that a night-time drone show in which the face of the impenetrably accented drystone waller called Gerald lights up the Oxfordshire sky would be part of an international TV success story? But I am glad it is.”
Ben Dowell, The Times