Sam & Ade Go Birding; Margo’s Got Money Troubles; Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service

“Does it matter that Sam & Ade Go Birding (5) has so many of the ingredients that makes Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing so special? Even down to the actor Adrian Edmondson’s animal ventriloquism and his issues with health and general gravity? Nope. This is simply another lovely programme about two men enjoying nature and each other’s company. The actor Sam West took the Paul Whitehouse role of knowledgeable, enthusiastic guide to an ingenue friend. And if you get someone to look at you the way he stares at a Cornish chough then marry them pronto. West and Edmondson bonded over lower-league football while filming Death in Paradise a few years ago and are, says Edmondson in one of this programme’s many touching moments, new friends made in later life. “I feel like I’m in the playground,” he said. We need shows like this. Gentle men unafraid to examine their feelings, as West did when he headed out early in the morning and caught sight of the PS Waverley, the world’s last seagoing passenger-carrying paddle steamer, chugging off the coast.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Actor Sam West has a lovely turn of phrase. Birdwatching exists on ‘a sliding scale of geekery,’ he says. He’s at the extreme end of the spectrum, ‘tiresomely diverted by rarities’. That’s what a lifetime in theatre does for a fellow, especially one whose parents were thesps, too: his dad was Timothy West, his mum Prunella Scales. So far, in Sam & Ade Go Birding, he hasn’t started quoting Shakespeare, but surely it’s only a matter of time. The only surprise about this show is that it’s taken so long to happen - eight years since the initial success of BBC2’s Gone Fishing with Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer. Birdwatching makes such an obvious companion-piece… though, as Sam illustrated with his sliding scale, ‘bird watching’ is what the rest of us do when we stare at the sparrows through the window.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“West is an endlessly kind and patient teacher, and keeps up a commentary throughout. If you’re interested in birds, there is much to enjoy here. But you sense that the producers are far more interested in the banter and the personal stuff. So the big revelation in this episode is that Edmondson is “on the pen”, by which he means taking weight-loss drugs. He’s lost half a stone in three weeks and can’t eat much of the packed lunch he’s brought along for the two of them. Edmondson mentions that he’d suffered pins and needles in his leg for ages but, “being a man”, he didn’t want to go to the doctor about it – a very Mortimer and Whitehouse-esque observation about late middle-aged males.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“It’s a comedy-drama heavier on the former than the latter, best enjoyed as a cosy commentary on the importance of family and the unimportance of how you construct it or the mistakes you make when trying along the way. It’s got charm, and it’s endearing if you’re not allergic to the schmaltz just begging to break through the surface. But, with the three main talents involved, it could have been so much more.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The characters are complex, the tone warm and non-judgmental. It was adapted for TV by David E Kelley, creator of Ally McBeal and husband to Pfeiffer. If only the drama were as funny as the Rufi Thorpe novel on which it is based. Instead, despite a winning central performance from Fanning, the laughs are scarce. It’s trying a bit too hard to be prestige TV: stellar cast, a cameo from Nicole Kidman (but isn’t she everywhere these days?), and made by the production company behind Marty Supreme. Netflix has been criticised for dramas that keep the hooks coming every 10 minutes to prevent audiences from getting bored, but Apple often goes too far in the opposite direction. I knew that the OnlyFans plot was coming because I had read the book, but you have to get halfway through the series to see where it’s going. It’s a bit too slow. You’ll feel as if you’ve moved in with Margo and are living her messy life in real time.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“If you want a savvy, open-minded take on OnlyFans and family dynamics which is, in turn, funny and really quite dark, then this is your series. Fanning, Pfeiffer and Offerman sparkle as a dysfunctional, oddball but ultimately loving trio, a blue-collar family with various odds stacked against them. Shyanne is now married to a church pastor and has to pretend she doesn’t drink. Jinx became addicted to prescription painkillers after a wrestling back injury, which then became a heroin addict and he is just out of rehab. Margo has a saintly friend Susie (Thaddea Graham) who is into cosplay and is frequently dressed as an elf but helps Margo not only with her son but her online life.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“It’s 1.07am in Washington DC, and Gordon Ramsay is in a baseball cap, driving. His destination: Parthenon, once a thriving neighbourhood joint where White House power-brokers ate Greek. But 36 years after it was opened by Pete, who left Zakynthos for a new life in America when he turned 18, Parthenon is in such a state that one of its staff has contacted Ramsay and arranged for him to break in overnight. Kitchen Nightmares was a decent runner for Channel 4 in the UK, but the US remake was a bigger hit, lasting for more than 100 episodes – so this follow-up has a lot to live up to. Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service overreacts to the challenge by keeping the basic format (our man lovingly bullying bad restaurateurs into being good), then hurriedly throwing on garnish after garnish.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian