Twenty Twenty Six; The Assembly; Michael Jackson: An American Tragedy

“Anyone worried that the baffled bureaucrat Ian Fletcher would struggle in a top-level transfer to his new job as director of integrity of the forthcoming football World Cup can relax. It’s a terrible experience for our hero, who is just as at sea in a plush Miami office as he was as head of deliverance for the Olympics in Twenty Twelve and as the BBC’s head of values in W1A. All of which means that in Twenty Twenty Six (BBC2) we have another very funny comedy on our hands. The scriptwriter John Morton clearly believes that ineptitude and — there is no other word for it — corporate bullshit exist everywhere in the western world, whether it’s in an office trying to “put a vibe under the World Cup” with slogans like “we are you” or when hosting a BBC “thought shower”. His comedy may feel soft but it’s supremely surefooted and, beneath its gentle surface, pleasingly scabrous.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Twenty Twenty Six doesn’t try to be that much more than Twenty Twelve redux, and that’s no bad thing. Ian Fletcher is a character strong enough to drop into any locale, and in Bonneville’s hands he is just enough of an egotist himself to keep thinking he can steer this new ship of fools. Indeed, the more you see Ian Fletcher taking meetings with David Beckham while furiously trying to wangle himself a bigger desk, the more you realise that it is perfectly conceivable that a man like him might well go from the Olympic organising committee to the BBC to the World Cup doing meaningless jobs with daft names and failing ever upwards.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“The best jokes revolve around the Englishman floundering in the New World, a reliable source of humour since Dickens’s day. How should a Brit behave during the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner? Ian settles for clenching his fist over his heart — fiercely patriotic, or suffering a twinge of angina.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“If Twenty Twenty Six was brave enough to really go there and stick the boot into Fifa’s dodgy cultural record, then perhaps it would be worth our time. But as it stands, it’s just a boring mockumentary devoid of any humour or bite, much like the droning meetings it makes us sit through. In fact, it could very well have been an email.”
Emily Baker, The i

“As opening questions in celebrity interviews go, it’s a bold one. You can’t imagine Norton, Ross or Winkleman beginning with it. But the latest guest on The Assembly, Stephen Fry, is just settling into his chair when he’s given this as his starter: “You tried to kill yourself a couple of times. Are you happy to be alive now?” The Assembly, of course, is not a standard chatshow. This is the one where a famous person is interrogated by a group of young adults with neurodivergence or learning disabilities, who are less inhibited by the ordinary protocols of TV interviews. Every question is simultaneously something no conventional interviewer would ever contemplate saying, and something we are immediately interested in seeing the guest react to. Celebs enter that bright, high-windowed room overlooking the Thames with a mix of joy and trepidation, knowing that the artifices and pretensions that usually protect them don’t apply here. “I’ve seen you guys,” says Fry on his way in. “Smiling assassins!””
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“If most chat shows aim for the atmosphere of a convivial dinner party, The Assembly (ITV) has more in common with random encounters in the kebab shop queue. Strangers step forward to say unexpected, often funny, borderline rude things. Stephen Fry, a man who purrs his way through public life and is generally feted wherever he goes, found this out when a young man who had done his research stepped up to ask: “You’ve done adverts for Heineken, Alliance & Leicester, Twinings Tea, Pioneer Hi-Fi, Walkers Crisps, Marks & Spencer, Honda, Virgin Media, Extra Strong Mints, After Eight Mints, Sainsbury’s, Heathrow Airport, Direct Line, EE and, finally, Whitbread. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for money?” Mrs Merton would be proud.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“The point of the documentary, which airs in the run-up to the release of Michael, the family-approved biopic in which Jackson is played by his nephew, is not to break new ground. Nor – unlike the recent Channel 4 documentary Michael Jackson: The Trial – does it contain new material. Its aim is to contextualise the whole damn thing: the journey from child prodigy to global icon, the controversy, media circus and criminal trials, all of which continue to divide Jackson’s legacy, and, since his death in 2009, make his estate boundless amounts of money. The danger of an all-encompassing approach is that the strokes can become too broad, and the moral compass lost. This documentary makes a valiant attempt at balance, but I’m not convinced the middle ground is what’s required when it comes to a story of such wild extremes.”
Chitra Ramaswamy, The Guardian

“More filler than thriller, Michael Jackson: An American Tragedy (BBC Two) is the latest in a procession of documentaries about the rise and fall of the King of Pop. Directed by Sophie Fuller (House of Kardashian), it follows on from Channel 4’s Michael Jackson: The Trial in February and comes ahead of this summer’s authorised biopic, Michael. But it doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the competition across three episodes that track Jackson’s ascent to musical greatness and his mind-bogglingly weird and tawdry decline. It plays the hits but not much else.”
Ed Power, Telegraph