“Perry’s last documentary series about masculinity was terrifically intelligent and honest. This looks as if it will be no different.”

Grayson Perry: Rites Of Passage

Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage, Channel 4

“Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage showed that, done properly, living funerals can be beautiful, profound and totally logical. Perry’s last documentary series about masculinity was terrifically intelligent and honest. This looks as if it will be no different.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Perry has two distinct advantages when tackling uncomfortable subjects: a very direct way of asking a question and an extremely generous laugh. This works as well for death as it does for, say, class and snobbery. In other words, he makes people feel at ease talking about matters of great significance, emotion and irrationality.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian

“He was sensitive and sincere – but, as things went on, it became less clear what his role was. I couldn’t help feeling that Roch and Jordan’s stories would have been powerful enough without him on the sidelines, and their circumstances were too unusual to support his universalising, quasi-anthropological patter.”
Orlando Bird, The Telegraph

Inside Alton Towers, Channel 4

“Much of it felt like a prolonged advert for the theme park’s new rollercoaster, Wicker Man, which incorporates wood and fire and is based on the 1973 film. There wasn’t much analysis of the slump in trade or job losses after the horrific accident in 2015. Fair enough, and I wish it well, but this documentary would have benefited from a few tough questions.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Though this was a fairly soft investigation, you couldn’t fault the staff’s commitment to the phenomenally stressful business of helping people have a good time. In the end, though, I couldn’t get that excited about it. If you’re a theme park veteran, is a TV programme going to be any kind of substitute for the real thing?”
Orlando Bird, The Telegraph

The Secret Life Of Landfill: A Rubbish History, BBC4

“This was a long programme, but it filled every moment, with facts piled as high as the rubbish mounds.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

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