“It looked bloody miserable. Which meant that as television it was bloody great”
“It looked bloody miserable. Which meant that as television it was bloody great. Reeve has been doing this for 20 years, and he’s really good at it. He strikes the perfect balance between wonderment (at the natural world) and dismay (at what we’re doing to it) and yet despite having all of the necessary ingredients for a part-time hosting gig on Children in Need or his own interactive series on Netflix, Reeve instead just keeps plodding along his own path.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph
“Much of the fun in this satisfying series opener flowed from that tension between his natural optimism and the fact he was spending a fair chunk of his screen time fending off creepy crawlies. A less optimistic presenter might have given up – or framed the journey as a remake of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (likewise set in the Congo). But Reeve sees a silver lining behind every cloud – even when that cloud is a horde of flies trying to devour his underwear. He took what could have been an ordeal and turned it into an enjoyable and informative adventure.”
Ed Power, The i
“Simon listened without comment or judgment. That’s what gives his documentaries their uniquely intelligent appeal. He doesn’t leap to conclusions or tell us what to think — he simply allows us to share his extreme experiences as an explorer and make up our own minds.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
“Wilderness might be much closer to a conventional conservation film than Reeve’s previous work, with a message less specific and surprising. But that message – a reminder not to give up on the hard slog to preserve the wonders we have left – could not be more important.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian
The Artful Dodger, Disney+
“As the BBC’s recent prequel series Dodger has also shown, if you’re going to revive this character you may as well do it with a whole dollop of irreverence. And this series hits the ground running like a sub-Guy Ritchie blast of fun, the newly respectable Dawkins being given plenty of zip and charisma from the impish-faced Thomas Brodie-Sangster.”
James Jackson, The Times
“Wounds – both open and stitched-but-suppurating – aside, it’s very enjoyable, all the more so for the flagrant disregard for the period. The script isn’t quite as sharp as, say, The Great or David Copperfield, but The Artful Dodger is still tremendously jolly and lots of fun. And completely disgusting.”
Marianne Levy, The i
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