“It was slickly done, with an impressive array of talking heads”

We Need to Talk About Cosby

We Need to Talk About Cosby, BBC2

“Only the first episode was available for review, but We Need to Talk About Cosby so far promises to be an exhaustive examination of the subject. Just possibly slightly exhausting too – I’m not sure we need a pharmacologist to explain the actual chemistry and effects of Spanish fly – but if so, it will be a minor flaw born of presenter W Kamau Bell’s willingness to anatomise everything he comes across.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“It was slickly done, with an impressive array of talking heads, including some of the accusers. In fact, sometimes it was so slickly done, with overlapping voices and chat show interviews, it felt like sensory overload. But this was no cut-and-paste run-through of the rise and fall of a former national treasure. It was a serious, meticulous attempt to understand why and how it happened, how one of the country’s darlings landed in court accused of serially drugging and raping women.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“I’m not sure how many British viewers will sit down to watch four hours’ worth of film on this subject, told through an American lens. But it is a fine piece of work, with film-maker Walter Kamau Bell refusing to take the easy route.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“The cohort of interviewees – academics, writers, actors and comedians, many of whom knew or worked with Cosby – were, without exception, engaging and candid as they wrestled with the knottiest of issues. The testimony of survivors was handled sensitively. There are no easy answers here when it comes to appraising Cosby’s cultural status in 2023. But Bell has created a space in which multiple voices and opinions co-exist (even within the same person) without being prescriptive about how his audience should feel.”
Rachel Sigee, The i

Paul Whitehouse: Our Troubled Waters, BBC2

“Whitehouse, being a comedian, kept the mood light for the most part. Almost too light, actually. For this is something we should rage about. I was certainly raging when they showed the heroic underwater photographer Mark Barrow swimming through the faecal soup in the gorgeous River Wharfe in Yorkshire, where I used to swim as a child.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“What this programme did was explain the problem very clearly, and in Whitehouse’s low-key but engaging style.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

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