Mark Lawson

Profile: Full name: Mark Lawson Area of interest: Culture and Media Journals/Organisation: The Guardian Email: mark.lawson@guardian.co.uk Personal website: Website: Guardian.co Blog: Comment is free... | the blog theatre & performing arts Representation: Networks:

Biography: About: Education: St Columba's College, St Albans; University College London: English Career: freelance contributor to numerous publications, beginning on The Universe, 1984; The Times, 1984/86; The Independent, 1986/95; The Guardian: column since 1995- Current position/role: Columnist and feature writer also writes/has written for: The Tablet as theatre critic, and contibutes to The First Post Other roles/Main role: Journalist, author, broadcaster Other activities: Disclosures: Viewpoints/Insight: Comment is free: My life as a Catholic Jew The Guardian, 24th March 2006 Broadcast media: Video: Presented BBC TV's The Late Show (BBC2) in the 1990's, also presenting The Late Review (aka Newsnight Review, 1994/2005; currently presents BBC Radio 4's arts magazine Front Row; also fronts BBC Four: 'Mark Lawson talks to...', 2006 Wrote: episodes of the television version of the BBC sitcom 'Absolute Power'; television play, 'The Vision Thing'; radio plays, including, St Graham and St Evelyn, 2003, The Third Soldier Holds His Thighs, 2005; a BBC Four documentary: The Truth About Sixties TV Controversy/Criticism: Awards/Honours: Has twice been voted TV critic of the Year Scoops: Other:

Books & Debate: Bloody Margaret: three political fantasies OCLC 24748128 , 1991 The battle for room service: journeys to all the safe places OCLC300336447 , 1994 Idlewild, or, everything is subject to change OCLC33011075 , fiction, 1995 Going Out Live, or, Are they the same at home OCLC49690851 , fiction, 2002 Enough Is enough, or, the emergency government: OCLC60688406 , fiction, 2005 Latest work: Speaking/Appearances: Debate:

The Guardian: Column name: Remit/Info: Section: Comment & Debate Role: Columnist Pen-name: Email: marklawson@guardian.co.uk Website: Guardian.co / Mark Lawson Commissioning editor: Day published: Friday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length: 850 words

Articles: The arts in 2012: the British blind spot - Mark Lawson kicks off our 2012 arts special by looking at how the Olympic Games will highlight the cracks in our culture - 30th December 2011 How the arts risk-takers reaped their rewards - From The King's Speech to the Great British Bake Off, this year's arts winners ignored the safety-first rules of surviving a downturn - 24th December 2011 Why humiliation TV needs willing victims, no matter how vulnerable they might be - Both X Factor and I'm A Celebrity have made the most of losing two vulnerable contestants, but has the price been too high? - 17th November 2011 Even Muammar Gaddafi deserved a private death - The bloody images of the Libyan dictator's final moments violate principles of taste and privacy the media should not abandon - 27th October 2011 The BBC's biggest change since digital expansion - The radical shakeup just announced will lead to BBC schedules that increasingly resemble American television - 7th October 2011 Betty Blue Eyes: the prime cut that nobody wanted - Betty Blue Eyes was a critical smash, but the final curtain comes down early this weekend. Why are original British musicals being squeezed out of the West End? - 22nd September 2011 A shrine for Saint Roald and Saint Rowling - I got a spiritual thrill from Strindberg's study. But is the worship of writers' rooms going too far? - 14th September 2011 Big Brother: the worst possible time for a comeback? - It would be hard to chose a more loaded moment to lock up and mock a bunch of self-obsessed and materially acquisitive young - 18th August 2011 After Freud, the camera – fast and super-cruel – will rule supreme - With Lucian Freud's death, the art of the portrait has passed from the canvas to the screen - 25th July 2011 Speech is a messy business, as Johann Hari, um, knows - Most interviews provide only an approximation of the encounter. Hari's case gives others a chance to consider their own methods - 2nd July 2011 Audiences, end these noises off - David Mellor is right to remonstrate with unruly theatre-goers. But he's fighting a losing battle - 17th June 2011 The gendered art of Emin - Women artists are subject to different rules from men, but should they be differently critiqued? - 19th May 2011 Bin Laden: the everywhere and nowhere man - This was a fugitive who, instead of disguising himself, enjoyed distributing images of his face throughout the world - 3rd May 2011 Should we care who wrote William Shakespeare's plays? - On the anniversary of his death, researchers – driven by a devotion to plays which have lasted centuries – are still finding, and deleting, works to credit to him - 23rd April 2011 Bob Dylan's political road – and Sesame Street's - Tyrannical regimes may be influenced by cultural 'soft power', but a boycott can be less compromising - 11th April 2011 TV's repeat prescription - Viewers are supposed to hate recycled shows. But the evidence points to an appetite for the familiar - 26th March 2011 Makeup for Johnny Depp - He may be white, but Johnny Depp is perfect casting for Tonto, the Lone Ranger's Native American sidekick - 21st February 2011 From porn to Portillo - Many ex-ministers fall for the temptations of on-air fame, but it's salutary to recall Harold Wilson's fate - 31st January 2011 Mourning television - Harrison Ford as Adrian Chiles? Fictional and real breakfast shows share a lot more than a name - 20th January 2011 Why sequels will not come first this year - With films like The King's Speech and 127 Hours to enjoy, I refuse to be gloomy about the future of cinema - 3rd January 2011 Theatre's tinsel pound makes children of us all again - From pantos to atheism, from Great War slaughter to Ronnie Corbett, every hit festive show will make us look back in wonder - 4th December 2010 Army bullying: a lot of friction over fiction - The military chiefs' over-the-top reaction to the BBC broadcast of a Jimmy McGovern play opens up a can of worms - 22nd November 2010 The viewers are revolting - These days even creators of sirs and serfs dramas can expect tough tweets and fast blogged feedback - 3rd November 2010 The Taking of Prince Harry and the limits of TV drama - With Channel 4 under fire for making a film in which Prince Harry is kidnapped by the Taliban, Mark Lawson asks: are there some places drama shouldn't go? - 14th October 2010 The Gamu Nhengu Factor - The singer's ejection from X Factor and maybe Britain could have an impact well beyond TV - 9th October 2010 Cameron: The random ambushes of life can make or break a PM - The kind of loss Cameron suffered this week will cause great private grief but nothing that happens to a leader is ever neutral - 10th September 2010 Cameron's reality check for the nation is a risky strategy - Students, homeowners, footballers and generals might all benefit from lowered expectations. But voters may not like it - 21st August 2010 The BBC's new film trailer may have a hidden message - Is the corporation trying to tell Jeremy Hunt something? - 29th July 2010 World leaders beware: there are John Terrys everywhere - Traditional hierarchies are crumbling, and it isn't only football managers left having to deal with teams full of soloists - 25th June 2010 The austerity push heralds a new age: of conspicuous non-consumption - In this climate of public parsimony, millionaires like George Osborne will fear being branded the Ashley Cole of the cabine - 27th May 2010 Villains in the Vatican - From Foreign Office memo writers to precient novelists, the pope and Catholicism have become the evil force of choice - 26th April 2010 Politicians' pop-culture love-in - David Cameron loves Take That, Gordon Brown's addicted to Glee, Nick Clegg's an Othello nut . . . as politicians vie for cultural kudos, Mark Lawson asks: who are they trying to kid? - 23rd April 2010 (Cif at the polls) TV and theatre should separate and end this glorified casting couch - The BBC must not let itself be used as an advertising billboard for Andrew Lloyd Webber's lucrative West End productions - 31st March 2010 Writing a way through grief - Books on bereavement are a rare mix of personal and universal – cathartic for both reader and writer - 13th March 2010 A quarter-century in Albert Square offers a telling omnibus of UK politics - EastEnders' 25 years map sweeping changes in the state of TV, and of Britain. In its 26th year, it could be used to attack the BBC - 16th February 2010 Bovines 1, Jokers 0 - Milton Keynes is up for the World Cup – and the concrete cows are over the moon - 19th December 2009 The feelgood spin doctors - Bad times call for upbeat slogans, producers seem to think, no matter what the film is really about - 11th December 2009 Is this a new golden age for British theatre? - While British film and TV struggle, our theatre scene is booming, with star turns from our greatest actors, and stand-out work from young writers. But can it last? - 3rd December 2009 Your biggest fanatics - Celebrity obsessives are not new. But Twilight's star and boyband JLS face a new, Twitterfied breed - 28th November 2009 How I fluffed my exit lines - It was not boredom but anger that tempted me to leave a play in mid-show – but I lacked the courage - 21st November 2009 Show me the Money - I'm thrilled that Martin Amis's great novel is to be adapted for screen – but the omens aren't good - 13th November 2009 The Jedward paradox and what it means - The X Factor audience revolt may reflect anger at bankers – but it also suggests a format malaise - 6th November 2009 Is this really what Michael Jackson would have wanted? - The 'concert movie' This Is It raises many moral questions, but one thing that's clear is how dull Kenny Ortega's film is - 31st October 2009 This artificially intelligent music may speak to our minds, but not our souls - Musicians express the communication between humans, something Emily Howell will never be able to understand - 23rd October 2009 Of primary importants - Encounters with writing by student critics leaves me thinking school ought to start earlier, not later - 17th October 2009 Royal Mail's last post - Just as the miners did, postal workers now risk destroying their profession because of strike action - 9th October 2009 Private functions - The media may want the doctors' details, but recent events underline the value of medical confidentiality - 2nd October 2009 Loose Women - Loose Women's 10th anniversary really isn't worth celebrating - 1st October 2009 The future ornament - Poor Prince William. He wants to emulate his parents, but a life of ribbon cutting awaits - 26th September 2009 Lost in the clouds - To censor pictures of the famous holding cigarettes betrays a curious idea of what makes people smoke - 19th September 2009 Contemporary fiction can still stand the test of time - As the Booker shortlist shows, authors prefer to write about the past. Yet great novels of their era feel fresh decades on - 11th September 2009 Who needs Hollywood stars any more? - When box office success owes more to the brand than actors, there's little worth in a megastar's fee - 5th September 2009 Still living in the fast lane - It may be Clarkson worship or even puma envy, but despite rehab I'm still addicted to speed - 29th August 2009 What killed Big Brother? - Channel 4 is pulling the plug on the show that changed TV for ever – but that has been stretched way beyond its shelf life - 27th August 2009 Unsporting behaviour - If Semanya is simply unusual, the athletics authority has failed horribly in its duty of care - 21st August 2009 Political endeavor - Enthusiasm for a leaders' debate is just the latest British effort to ape the ways of The West Wing - 31st July 2009 Smack on the funny bone - Politicians under fire from satirists should never rub their bruises. The smart move is to laugh along - 25th July 2009 This vital medium bestows a curious kind of immortality - No matter how familiar we are with recorded performance, an element of confusion remains when viewing the dead - 17th July 2009 Strictly Come Sexism - Whatever the BBC says, its treatment of Arlene Phillips will give rise to disquieting perceptions - 11th July 2009 Sporting behaviour? Best ask Freddie and the gougers - Corinthian integrity may have long left our games, but they still manage to construct strange ethical codes of their own - 3rd July 2009 Chronicle of a death oversold - Michael Jackson's death demonstrated the impressive velocity of online news. I just worry about the veracity and the values - 27th June 2009 Boss-class hypocrisy - Managers who have long defended their huge pay have a cheek asking staff to work for nothing - 19th June 2009 Artists with a mission - Cultural manifestos are built on a contradictory idea: using conventions to be unconventional - 13th June 2009 Heroine smugglers - There's a big difference between the odd playful reference and a free ride on the back of a classic - 5th June Cultural shades of grey - Just how much are the 28,540 households that stick to black-and-white telly missing out on? - 29th May 2009 Westminster greedy pig fever is tearing up the media rulebook - These days of duck landlords and mortgage scams have put a serious strain on brave teachers of journalistic ethics - 23rd May 2009 A legislature of Lumleys - Voters' disgust at MPs could bring a rush of new members – but are the substitutes up to the job? - 15th May 2009 Property Watch - Property shows used to be either boastful or dreamy. Now they are impressively pessimistic - 14th May 2009 The fan's apocalypse - Reactions to the ref's decision after Chelsea-Barcelona match illustrated how much judgment can be occluded by partisanship - 9th May 2009 Subversive and symbolic - The choice of Carol Ann Duffy as poet laureate is a bold one, and could well be a worthwhile gift to the culture of a nation - 2nd May 2009 Michael Grade – last of a dying breed - The former ITV chief uniquely understood the combination of pizazz and intelligence that a television schedule required - 24th April 2009 The big political shows missed McBride - A journalistic pace from a time when politics meant 'events in the Commons' is inappropriate for our 24-hour media culture - 23rd April 2009 Nark on the neighbours - Grassing up students and going through strangers' trash just doesn't square with the trust agenda - 18th April 2009 It's way past bedtime - Novels are designed to be read, not heard. The audiobook boom risks infantilising literature - 10th April 2009 A writer like Marquez can have no retirement date - The Nobel laureate may be quitting, but history shows that an author's career can survive even death - 3rd April 2009 (see: Gabriel García Márquez, literary giant, lays down his pen) Courts, like theatres, deliver drama but also great pretence - There is something elementally compelling about trials. The Hodgson and Fritzl cases serve up contrasting examples - 20th March 2009 Relax, Andy. Real beer at the Rovers Return won't kill us - There is a commerical and an artistic defence for TV product placement. Burnham's ban smacks of patronising nannying - 13th March 2009 Too young to get it - For years I delighted in mocking this novelist. With the benefit of age, I see how wrong I was - 6th March 2009 The art of persuasion - Participation has a role in attracting the young to high culture. But doing can never trump viewing - 28th February 2009 A tabloid Carmen - Modern opera and social realism don't always mix. But Anna Nicole Smith's story could be a winner - 13th February 2009 Top of the docs - Want a hit record? Then get your track played on one of Holby City's slow, meaningful montages - 9th February 2009 We're all in public now - Surveillance and snitches may mean celebrities will not be the only ones to rue unguarded remarks - 7th February 2009 Ninny book of booze - Strict drinking ages are of little use to those fighting the hormonal wars of independence - 30th January 2009 The statuette Olympics - British triumph in the Oscar nominations is a tribute to our tradition of cultural subsidy - 23rd January 2009 Elements of surprise - Critics are being urged to keep plots secret, but is ignorance really bliss for the viewing public? - 16th January 2009 Big Brother's grandpa - From Hancock to reality TV, the renovation of dramatic dialogue owes much to Pinter's works - 2nd January 2009 Warring Hallelujahs - The brouhaha around competing covers of this great Leonard Cohen song is weirdly fitting - 19th December 2008 The play's the thing - The mania for star actors has got out of hand when audiences will only turn up for Tennant as Hamlet - 12th December 2008 It's a tough call, but England must go back to bat again - For the same reasons it boycotted South Africa, our cricket team has to return to India. But spare a thought for the players - 5th December 2008 Wanted: poet. Must not be shy, deviant or Pam Ayres - Poet laureate has become a job worth having at last. The downside is that, as Andrew Motion found, the press is interested too - 27th November 2008 Thank the Lord - Monks in the charts, exorcisms on TV, a statue of Jesus sexually aroused. Why artists can't resist the lure of Christianity - 26th November 2008 Gaunty, you were right - The shock jock's sacking suggests a loss of nerve on freedom of speech, as does the BNP exposure - 21st November 2008 The Screaming Lord Sutch of the dancefloor - Did John Sergeant feel trapped in a rather vulgar and undignified farce? - 20th November 2008 Why tupping the puppet is a recipe for ruined lives - Whether through Second Life or The X Factor, the industrialisation of day dreaming seems deeply symbolic of modern life - 15th November 2008 A poisonous prescription - Allowing rich patients to pay for better pills than their neighbours' sits ill with the NHS's principles - 7th November 2008 Welcome to the Blander Broadcasting Corporation - As with previous TV and radio scandals, the Brand and Ross rumpus will be used by BBC managers to justify cuts and caution - 30th October 2008 Books of the dead funny - Posthumous humour is a hot genre, but laughter feels a little complicated with the just-deceased - 18th October 2008 A formal rejection - Nobel judges like their books experimental - to the cost of the classic American novelists - 10th October 2008 Salutes, lies and videotape - These sadistic initiation ceremonies reflect Britain's culture of whooping cruelty - 4th October 2008 The year of the novice - Seasoned politicians both sides of the Atlantic are running on experience - a very risky strategy - 26th September 2008 Testing the heavens - Scientists may be trying to engage with believers, but experiments won't resolve the big questions - 22nd September 2008 A triumph for heresy - In Zagreb the England footballers put the boot into one of sport's most cherished traditions - 12th September 2008 A lesson in verse -Carol Ann Duffy's work on violence is ideal for classroom discussion. It's a poem, not a memo - 5th September 2008 Never before have I been so moved, or enraged, by a play - I came out of Deep Cut feeling rage and guilt. It points to a failure of journalism, and demands a government response - 29th August 2008 Leaders who seek readers - JFK did it. Brown does it. And now every aspirant puts out a book. But the psychology is very odd - 22nd August 2008 That golden age? It never happened, except in the minds of pessimists - Those who invoke a great British past might get a shock if forced to live their lives then, instead of these privileged times - 1st August 2008 Radio Miliband: Well tuned to Brown's fears - Foreign secretary's on air joke sounds like the gag of a man thinking about Downing Street - 1st August 2008 The Panama mystery - Mr and Mrs Canoe's case fascinates but can't match crime fiction's satisfying motives and denouement - 25th July 2008 The end of cinematic sex - The explicit scenes in Nicholas Roeg's new film feel passe - it's all been done on the internet - 18th July 2008 Trouble with Heathcliff - Brown and Obama are not the first politicians to stumble in taking on the fluffy questions - 11th July 2008 We are the alien nation - Recent 'sightings' expose a collective anxiety that has more to do with security fears than ET - 4th July 2008 Celebrity takeoff - John Wayne's got it, but Diana hasn't. It takes a special something to get your name on an airport - 27th June 2008 Spun to be home-spun - The latest treatment of Michelle Obama reveals the enduring woman problem in politics - 20th June 2008 Unattended packages - Leaving secret anti-terror files on a train sends a troubling message to al - Qaida: we are silly - 13th June 2008 Classification dismissed - A plan to print suggested reading ages on children's books has their authors up in arms, and rightly so - 6th June 2008 Still crazy - and controversial - after all these years - What do Big Brother and George Bush have in common? - 6th June 2008 This loophole is real. But the remedy is really perverse - The urge to outlaw computer-made images of abuse is not mad, it's just wrong. It imperils free artistic expression - 31st May 2008 Family misfortune - As the Queen is finding, even the most guarded reputation is imperilled by one's tacky relatives - 23rd May 2008 Weapons we can't handle - This spate of stabbings defies simple remedy, with knives so available and anger so inevitable - 16th May 2008 This lethal peepshow - A global village of news from Austria to Burma is creating not worldwide concern, but voyeurism - 9th May 2008 Goals and ghosts - The emotional scenes at Chelsea this week were a reminder that football and death often overlap - 2nd May 2008 Mission improbable - Derring-do, pop singing, and a presidency: a new breed of priest is giving Catholicism a makeover - 25th April 2008 Not in front of the adults - The rules governing bad language on TV seek to protect the innocent. But who are they exactly? - 18th April 2008 Existing as fiction - John Betjeman's 'muse' understood perfectly that her portrayal in his poems was not an impersonation but a reimagining of her as a character - 17th April 2008 Now we're all time lords - The likes of iPlayer let us watch programmes any time, but we risk losing the shared TV experience - 11th April 2008 A formula for morality - The boundaries between public and private life are hardly clear-cut for the son of a fascist leader - 5th April 2008 One-hit wonders - Kevin Spacey has called for the return of the BBC's Play for Today. But were these intensely male, leftwing, one-off dramas really the high point of British TV - 2nd April 2008 Embroidered memories - Hillary Clinton has admitted she 'misspoke' on Bosnia, but in doing so she uttered rare truth - 28th March 2008 This apology underlines the true value of false reporting - The Express group has said sorry and paid hefty damages over McCann stories. But they still know what sells papers - 20th March 2008 Exit, stage-right - David Mamet says he is no longer a liberal. But good dramatists know how to argue both sides - 14th March 2008 A country of gulfs - Two conflicting stories faced each other across the news pages this week, like rival gangs of children squaring up for a fight - 7th March 2008 Nothing for something - Instead of worrying that the drugs don't work we should celebrate the fact that placebos do - 29th February 2008 Open to question - Our confused attitude to transparency means it can provoke as much cynicism as secrecy does - 22nd February 2008 An instant classic - The Polaroid was beloved of spies, pornographers, cops - and me, but for very different reasons - 15th February 2008 Let the final credits roll - If Grange Hill, with all its narrative muscle, can't avoid TV's mercy killers, it will be Blue Peter next - 8th February 2008 A new golden age in cinema - A revolution in ambition and intelligence has brought us films to rival those of the 40s and 70s - 1st February 2008 Populist prejudice - Crime books easier to write than 'serious' novels? That attitude is, frankly, cobblers - 25th January 2008 Tout la monde - The selling-on of tickets is becoming a corporate affair - but the average consumer is still the loser - 12th January 2008 How fiction lost the plot - The latest book of the year shortlist can't disguise the prejudices that threaten literature - 5th January 2008 TV's future should not lie in the past - Programme makers must not forget that the best shows have all begun as risky projects - 29th December 2007 In a modern democracy, it should be possible for a leader to be religiously anything or nothing - Saturday 22nd December 2007 The Australian proposal for day-night Tests has revealed a reactionary in this former radical - Friday December 14th 2007 The hyper-reality of fiction techniques has transformed the way we consume the news - Friday 7th December 2007 As I'm a Celebrity stars are finding, real reality can prove more eventful than the TV show - Friday 30th November 2007 We must allow England's sports stars, bloated by hype and crushed by expectation, to aim lower - Friday 23rd November 2007

The Guardian: Column ended January 2012 Column name: 'TV matters' Remit/Info: Issues and politics of TV broadcast media and related areas Section: Role: Columnist Pen-name: Email: mark.lawson@guardian.co.uk Website: Guardian.co | Guardian.co/TV & Radio Commissioning editor: Day published: Thursday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length: also contributes to theblog film

Articles: Room 101 and MasterChef - The two shows are returning to the screen with rejigged formats, but in his last TV matters column for the Guardian Mark Lawson warns that change can be risky - 12th January 2012 The Public Enemies chaos - The BBC pulled its drama Public Enemies and replaced it with a Panorama about the Stephen Lawrence murder. Could the chaos this caused viewers have been avoided? - 5th January 2012 Festive fixtures - Jools's Annual Hootenanny is the nearest thing we have today to an annual favourite such as Morecambe & Wise - 29th December 2011 The most popular shows of 2011 - In a year of astonishing political, financial and media developments, the most watched news bulletin featured Prince William and Kate Middleton getting hitched - 22nd December 2011 Daybreak - Temporary hosts Dan Lobb and Kate Garraway are desperate to show they are the right people for the job. What excitement at breakfast time - 15th December 2011 Variety shows - It was designed as a transitional format in the early days of mainstream TV. But Variety has proved strangely resilient - 8th December 2011 Christmas comes early - The schedules should not become an advent calendar – 17 December is soon enough for festive specials - 1st December 2011 Only Fools and Horses - Viewers will laugh again when the much-loved chandelier scene is repeated – but what does that tell us about comedy? - 24th November 2011 Life's Too Short – the trailer - Viewers are clearly irritated by constant repetition of the same trailers – so why run them? - 10th November 2011 PBS UK - Transatlantic sea-change: now the US is sending upmarket programming to Britain - 3rd November Royal reporting - Prince Charles says he wants to be taken seriously, so he has to accept that a less deferential style of royal reporting is inevitable - 27th October 2011 Advertising breaks - Viewers may complain that shows such as Downton Abbey are spoiled by too many ad breaks – but that's the nature of the beast - 20th October 2011 The Jury - ITV's The Jury is that rare thing, a television remake – but will it work? - 13th October 2011 Televised trials - The televised trials of Amanda Knox and Michael Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray suffer from a serious case of OJ Simpson-envy - 6th October 2011 Philip Glenister in Hidden - Will we be able to believe in Glenister as Harry Venn when his Gene Hunt still looms so large? - 29th September 2011 Downton Abbey v Spooks - The aristos beat the espios, but going head-to-head on the same evening isn't the fraught business it used to be - 22nd September 2011 Red or Black? - Given the furore over Nathan Hageman, should game shows do background checks on their contestants? - 22nd September 2011 Celebrity talent shows - Rory Bremner on Strictly Come Dancing, Kirsty Wark on Celebrity MasterChef – there's a subtle class system of celeb talent contests at work here - 8th September 2011 A David Hare double-bill - David Hare wrote Page Eight and The Hours, which both showed on BBC2 in one evening – so why didn't the Beeb give him some credit? - 1st September 2011 The BBC's Hitler season - He's in a drama, a documentary and Doctor Who – why is the Beeb suddenly blitzing us with the Fuhrer? - 25th August 2011 Yes, Minister - Anyone writing comedy about politics would do well to study a new book by one of the writers of the classic Whitehall satire - 18th August 2011 Skype and satellite links - Skype and satellite links can add to the authenticity of reports from foreign warzones – but are less effective when coming from closer to home - 11th August 2011 Orchestral overkill - Nicholas Crane's Town could have done with more natural noises and less intrusive background music - 4th August 2011 Grimetime TV: why the north rules - From Coronation Street to Cold Feet, the north of England has dominated TV drama - 4th August 2011 The comedians' gagging order - Heard about the comedy TV host who was banned from telling jokes? It'll have you rolling in the aisles - 27th July 2011 The Clarkson Connection - Jeremy Clarkson is a pivotal figure among the Murdoch crowd – but why has the Top Gear presenter never shifted to Sky? - 21st July 2011 Newsnight with Hugh Grant - He might be tongue-tied in his movies, but Hugh Grant made his case impressively in the Newsnight studio with Paxman - 14th July 2011 The Life of Muhammad - Rageh Omaar's documentary highlights the problems TV producers have in finding appropriate images - 7th July 2011 Location, location, location - Does it matter at all where a programme is actually made? - 30th June 2011 Saturday Kitchen - Chef-presenter James Martin interviews while slaving over the stove – does cooking get any tougher than that? - 23rd June 2011 Novels and television - Television and fiction have a long history of affinity – and it works both ways - 16th June 2011 Choosing to Die - The controversy sparked by Terry Pratchett's documentary showing a man's assisted death is actually about the print media's distrust of TV - 9th June 2011 Britain's got a lot of product-placement - It can't possibly make sense for independent television to offer free advertising on its talent shows - 2nd June 2011 TV matters: the studio audience - Graham Norton at the Baftas struggled to meet the competing needs of his studio and TV audiences - 26th May 2011 Goodbye to the old box - Clearing out my hefty old TV sets has proved to be an emotional experience - 19th May 2011 Why facts are Exiled in television drama - Shows such as Exile demonstrate how factual accuracy is sacrificed for dramatic intensity - 12th May 2011 The BBC's Party Election Broadcast crash - When David Cameron's programme came a cropper on the BBC, it was briefly like the early days of TV - 5th May 2011 Superinjunctions are turning TV shows into charades - A device designed to buy silence leaves audiences split between the bewildered and the knowing - 28th April 2011 Doctor Who, featuring President Nixon - Why is it that years after his death, Tricky Dicky remains a fixture of television fiction? - 21st April 2011 Glee is cleverly reinventing itself - Keeping a hit formula going for successive series without boring viewers is a tricky task - 14th April 2011 An ad-free royal wedding - Banning commercials from ITV's royal wedding coverage is a result of confused thinking - 7th April 2011 Fern Britton - The most interesting bit of Fern Britton's new chatshow occurred in the commercial break – not a good sign - 31st March 2011 Peter Fincham on 5 Live - As Richard Bacon's guest on 5 Live, former BBC1 controller Peter Fincham seemed to shed a revealing light on corporation funding - 24th March 2011 Midsomer Murders - The diversity row over Midsomer Murders points up TV drama's enforced doctrine of realism - 17th March 2011 The prime minister on The One Show - David Cameron's appearance on The One Show could not have been softer soap - 10th March 2011 Newsnight dress code - Lord West in black tie cut an anachronistic figure in these dressing-down times - 4th March 2011 Ad breaks - they're not just natural - Commerical breaks can now last for six minutes – but little thought has been given to the effect this will have on the shaping and pacing of programmes - 24th February 2011 Discrimination at the BBC - Older female presenters aren't the only ones to be discriminated against at the BBC: the corporation isn't keen on men of a certain size, either, it would appear - 17th February 2011 Ricky Gervais and other awards ceremony hosts - The problem is not so much the host as the sad and disappointed audience - 10th February 2011 Graham Norton - The Graham Norton Show is pioneering a fresh new format - with surprising results - 3rd February 2011 Andy Gray - Broadcasters must always assume that the mics and cameras are on all the time - 27th January 2011 That Sunday Night Show - The ratings are decent, but is Adrian Chiles's new show about the chat or the gags? - 20th January 2011 Miriam O'Reilly's victory - Miriam O'Reilly's victory and other television disputes indicate a busy time ahead for the lawyers - 13th January 2011 TV matters: channel crossing - Reality shows such as Britain's Got Talent have broken down the barriers between television channels - 6th January 2011 David Cameron - David Cameron's luck with TV continues: all the prime minister's recent difficulties have occurred when the political shows have been on holiday - 30th December 2010 Miranda and Peep Show - There are good reasons why both sitcoms went for the single-room location this week... - 23rd December 2010 Is Huw Edwards really the new David Dimbleby? - The newsreader may be anchoring the royal wedding, but don't count out the veteran presenter yet - 16th December 2010 The X Factor's other verdict: Simon Cowell's control has its limits - Painter-decorator Matt Cardle won last night's X Factor final, leaving the show's creator, Simon Cowell, to lick his wounds after being ignored by the British public - 13th December 2010 Who's going to share Portillo's seat? - With Diane Abbott no longer Michael Portillo's partner on This Week, Mark Lawson has a replacement in mind ... - 9th December 2010 Miranda cracks the television screen - By addressing the camera directly, Miranda Hart joins a very distinctive televisual group - 2nd December 2010 How Simon Amstell shook up BBC Breakfast - It was bad enough breaking the show's sofa protocol – but Amstell's cancer joke really rattled presenters Sian Williams and Bill Turnbull - 25th November 2010 How the royal engagement is a great TV leveller - Prince William and Kate Middleton's engagement dominated Newsnight – a classic example of how broadcasters are obeying the tyranny of celebrity - 18th November 2010 Alan Partridge and his Foster's habit - The Norfolk radio jock is back – with cutting-edge online technology - 11th November 2010 Chris Moyles on TV – a good thing? - What with his Quiz Night and televised breakfast show, there's a lot of Moyles on the small screen – but there are risks - 4th November 2010 Paul O'Grady's socialist fury rant was a rare live-TV shock - If Paul O'Grady Live was on the BBC, his attack on the Tory cuts would have been taped and de-fanged - 28th October 2010 Why did Rachel Johnson agree to that documentary? - The Lady and the Revamp seemed to do her no favours – but boosted sales anyway - 21st October 2010 Poets on television - Nowadays, you'd never see a poet such as Auden on a chatshow. So what's changed in the culture of television? - 14th October 2010 Why Cameron could be praying for the BBC strike to go ahead - Politicians prefer to work in the dark – especially when there are huge budget cuts to announce - 7th October 2010 North Korea through western eyes - A glimpse of North Korea's TV bulletins provides valuable lessons about them – and us - 30th September 2010 The Lib Dem conference and the return of the gorilla shot - 'Behind you!' – TV coverage of the Lib Dem conference shows that David Attenborough's 'gorilla shot' is back - 23rd September 2010 Why controllers of BBC1 don't last long - The problem is that BBC1 is trying to be two different things at once - 23rd September 2010 Enter the pope, to a clash of news agendas - TV coverage of the pope's visit will have to tread a fine line between the demands of the pews and the news - 9th September 2010 The rebirth of Sherlock - Comparing the pilot of hit detective series Sherlock to the finished product is highly revealing - 2nd September 2010 Simon Amstell, Larry David and the rise of the 'sim-com' - From Simon Amstell to Steve Coogan to Trinny and Susannah, today's stars simply play exaggerated versions of themselves. Does it count as acting? - 2nd September 2010 The Bill lives on - Fans of The Bill, Big Brother and all should cheer up – these shows never really end - 26th August 2010 Jason Manford will have a tough time juggling The One Show and his standup gigs - Manford will be rushed by motorbike from BBC Television Centre to the Hammersmith Apollo - 19th August 2010 Revealed: why American teenagers know their presidential history - Fears that modern teenagers are rotting their brains in front of the TV might be wide of the mark - 12th August 2010 Five's formula: Neighbours, necrosis and news - Richard Desmond's new channel has suffered for being an afterthought terrestrial broadcaster in a digital age - 24th July 2010 Panorama - Is it the clever visual trickery, or just good solid reporting that pulls in Panorama's viewers - 22nd July 2010 Raoul Moat and live television news coverage - Did the Raoul Moat story really warrant live coverage of the stand-off with police - 15th July 2010 A Question of Sport – with the rude bits left in - Uncensored version of the quiz show to go out at 10.20pm - 8th July 2010 Christine Bleakley and Gabby Logan - Christine Bleakley's World Cup trip demonstrates that access isn't everything in sports journalism - 1st July 2010 TV Matters: a linguistic oddity in Crimewatch - Welsh language speakers were invited to snitch in their native tongue. Why does the BBC deem this desirable? - 24th June 2010 Newsnight Labour leadership debate - Diane Abbott gave the sparkiest performance in a format that felt under-organised compared to the over-regulated election debates - 17th June 2010 Doctor Who and Junior Apprentice - It was good to see art turning up in two big, mainstream programmes - 10th June 2010 Big Brother's last launch: One more time, the circus comes to town - The opening show of what will be the final series on Channel 4 brought to mind a contemporary adjective: Cowell-esque - 10th June 2010 TV matters: Doctor Who - In a timely episode, the Doctor tried to form a coalition of enemies on Saturday night - 3rd June 2010 TV matters: The Million Pound Drop Live - This cruel new gameshow raises the question of how far television should adapt to the mood of recession - 27th May 2010 Ashes to Ashes - As Ashes to Ashes and several other series approach the end, Mark Lawson considers the difficult art of the big finish - 20th May 2010 Question Time - This new Tory-Lib Dem pact is going to disrupt the visual grammar of political television, says Mark Lawson - 13th May 2010 TV matters - All networks, BBC and commercial, are struggling with what it means to be a national broadcaster - 6th May 2010 Outnumbered - It can be tricky when fictional television characters watch TV, but Outnumbered manages to make it both believable and funny - 29th April 2010 Frank Skinner's Opinionated - why Frank Skinner's loss is our gain - 23rd April 2010 TV debate: Leaders' reputations left intact - Television history was made but no political reputations were unmade - 15th April 2010 TV matters: live sport on TV - It's a perilous game, planning live broadcasts of sporting events - as Match of the Day Live has found to its cost this week - 15th April 2010 The Door - The Door demonstrates the many dangers of the spin-off show - 8th April 2010 Budget statements and responses - These five-minute broadcasts have barely changed in 50 years. Surely it's time to liven them up a bit? - 1st April 2010 TV Book Club - It survived Richard and Judy's departure, but TV Book Club isn't exactly thriving in its solo slot - 25th March 2010 Victoria: A Royal Love Story - Fiona Bruce's documentary showed how sensitive the BBC has become to accusations of commercial plugs - 18th March 2010 Five Days and MasterChef - Cheeringly, last week's ratings for BBC1 primetime challenge the assumption that cheap reality is more popular than expensive drama - 11th March 2010 Push the Button - Ant and Dec's latest gameshow demonstrates how the genre is evolving - 4th March 2010 TV matters: themed programming - What will follow talent contests as the new must-have commissions for television? Judging by the schedules, it's all about food - 25th February 2010 The Brit Awards - It was hard to know who the show was aimed at - the hordes at Earls Court or the TV audience at home - 18th February 2010 Midsomer Murders - In recent years, the departure of a lead character has done nothing to diminish a drama – much to the dismay of actors and their agents - 12th February 2010 The Richard Dimbleby Lecture - Terry Pratchett proved that speech-based presentations can be done brilliantly on television - 4th February 2010 TV matters: hearings on television - Not recorded, but not quite live, hearings such as the Chilcot inquiry pose fascinating problems for TV - 28th January 2010 Conventions in TV crime drama - Googling isn't always a detective's best strategy - 21st January 2010 Jonathan Ross's downfall was of his own making - There was always some question over how long Jonathan Ross's scary, sweary approach could last - 12th January 2010 Weather correspondents - For those despatched to the side of a motorway to report on the latest snow news, there are many presentational rules to be observed - 7th January 2010 TV matters: ubiquitous celebrities on screen - They may be hot, but certain popular celebrities are risking overexposure - 31st December 2009 Christmas TV schedules a dumping ground for expensive drama - As television enters a new decade, it seems to be suffering from format freeze - 23rd December 2009 Hamlet on TV - Hamlet, in its three-hour-plus entirety, will be shown on BBC2 on Boxing Day - 17th December 2009 US news coverage of Tiger Woods - Comparing US news output with that in Britain raises some interesting questions - 10th December 2009 School of Saatchi - With his no-show in his own programme, Charles Saatchi is part of a TV tradition - 3rd December 2009 The One Show - Suddenly, watching The One Show is all about studying its presenters' body language - 26th November 2009 Stand-in presenters -Finding a last-minute replacement to front a show can be a delicate business - 19th November 2009 TV matters: Poppies - The wearing of poppies by TV presenters is getting earlier and earlier - 12th November 2009 The Impressions Show With Culshaw and Stephenson - Jon Culshaw does a spot-on impression of . . . Alistair McGowan - 5th November 2009 TV matters - The 'look away now' principle doesn't just apply to football results any more - spoilers are becoming endemic - 29th October 2009 TV matters: Question Time - Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Tonight raises practical dilemmas for the show's producers - 22nd October 2009 TV matters: live leadership debates - The mooted leadership debates on TV are no place for Alex Salmond – or Nick Clegg - 15th October 2009 The Graham Norton Show - Graham Norton's back - and he's parked his tanks firmly on Jonathan Ross's lawn - 8th October 2009 The problems of subtitling the news - It's a tough call for subtitlers, hearing - and spelling - fast-moving speech correctly - 24th September 2009 Blockbuster films on TV - Big ratings for big films on television could be bad news for TV drama - 17th September 2009 Question Time - It's inevitable – and right - that Nick Griffin will appear on Question Time - 10th September 2009 BBC Ten O'Clock News - Ever wondered what Huw Edwards gets up to once he's signed off the news? - 3rd September 2009 The Ashes - This year's Ashes victory, on Sky, felt less like a shared national moment - 27th August 2009 Morecambe - Do stars of the small screen become as familiar to us as our friends and relatives? - 20th August 2009 Historical hindsight doesn't make good drama - Too much TV fiction, such as Desperate Romantics or The Take, now depends on historical irony not insight - 13th August 2009 The art of the episode subtitle - Thanks to the flourishing discipline of episode subtitling, writers can no longer relax when they've named their series - 6th August 2009 The Apprentice, Dragons' Den - The BBC has gone strangely quiet on its boasts of its stars' wealth - 30th July 2009 Harold Pinter and Simon Gray on BBC4 - BBC4 lines up a double-handed tribute to Pinter and Gray - 23rd July 2009 Is there anyone still watching Big Brother? - 9th July 2009 Wimbledon 2009 (BBC) - Famous as a player for challenging officialdom, John McEnroe has shown refreshingly little respect for his employer's sensitivities - 2nd July 2009 Good Morning America - 25th June 2009 A football channel is in trouble for paying too much for football games fans don't want to see - Just as the collapse of Newcastle United has sent warnings to other football clubs about over-ambitious goals and expenditure, so the even worse financial plight of Setanta Sports - a network on the brink of extinction - will stand as a moral lesson for sports broadcasters - 11th June 2009 Crimewatch - In 25 years one aspect has been constant: the crime reconstructions that exploit tragedy for dramatic titillation - 4th June 2009 TV matters: It's BBC English, innit? - Sir Alan's 'don't' and 'ain't' are a deliberate declaration that he is on television, rather than in television - 28th May 2009 TV matters: Deja news - The routine reminder to swap channels at 10.30pm assumes viewers want to watch both shows - 21st May 2009 Britain's Got Talent - After demonstrating its PR power with the success of Susan Boyle, is Britain's Got Talent now heading for a fall - 7th May 2009 The end of the South Bank Show - The scuttling of ITV's flagship arts programme, Melvyn Bragg's South Bank Show, confirms television's abandonment of culture - 7th May 2009 Casualty cameo - John Sergeant risked ending up in A&E after Strictly Come Dancing. Now he's in Casualty - 30th April 2009 Tonight's the Night (BBC1) - 16th April 2009 Match of the Day without Shearer - 9th April 2009 Will today's arts programmes age so quickly? - Arts shows from the last 30 years hold comedy and tragedy – and a gravity that we seem to have lost - 2nd April 2009 Has Chris Moyles reinvented himself, or is he having an identity crisis? - 27th March 2009 on two new shows tackling the phenomenon of sudden disappearance - 19th March 2009 on Wendy Richard: To Tell You the Truth (BBC1) - 12th March 2009 on I've Never Seen Star Wars - 5th March 2009 Wendy Richard, who died today, created two iconic characters in her career - 27th February 2009 One of the cliches of TV news - an easy image of urgency or power - is cars speeding past the camera - 26th February 2009 Blue Peter under threat - 19th February 2009 Homes Under the Hammer | To Buy Or Not To Buy - 12th February 2009 Film 2009 - 5th February 2009 On Sky News on Sunday afternoon, men's necklines became the headlines - 29th January 2009 Return of Ross: A thin line between Brand and bland - BBC's high command prayed for dullness in the comeback show, and, with deft use of scissors, they got it - 24th January 2009 Big Chef Takes On Little Chef - 22nd January 2009 Jeff Randall Live - 15th January 2009 If anyone is looking for a good night's entertainment, I recommend episodes 19-22 of season seven of The West Wing - 8th January 2009 Frank Skinner's Panorama - 1st January 2009 The telephone and the trouble it has proved for television - 18th December 2008 This week's biggest TV event took place off-screen: the UK release of the box-set of all five seasons of The Wire - 11th December 2008 Spooks - 4th December 2008 BBC News - 27th November 2008 Apparitions (BBC1) - 20th November 2008 To an unusual degree, this US election was driven by television moments - 6th November 2008 In the case of The Office, the US cousin has grown so far from its roots that only trace elements remain - 30th October 2008 Recent blog-bitching whispers that Bruce Forsyth is approaching his last tango on Strictly Come Dancing - 23rd October 2008 Stephen Fry in America | The American Future | The American Future | Greatest Cities of the World - 16th October 2008 ...on Big Cat Live - 9th October 2008 Panorama - 2nd October 2008 Working Lunch entertainingly continues Greg Dyke's mission to stop the BBC being so business-illiterate - 25th September 2008 The first lady of the French Republic really was crooning on a stool on Later ... Live - 18th September 2008 Any televised sport that is not played at the highest possible level has always seemed unsatisfactory - 11th September 2008 Richard Attenborough's memoir touches on his role in two crucial moments in TV history - 4th September 2008 Wogan's Perfect Recall is the first quizshow in which knowledge is optional - 28th August 2008 Viewers of the thrilling action pictures from the Beijing Olympics may not realise that they are part of the debt that television audiences owe to Sir David Attenborough - 21st August 2008 One of the basic skills required in television presentation is directing the eyes - 14th August 2008 ...on Meet the Press - 7th August 2008 ...on Sky News - 31st July 2008 Eating With the Enemy | Step Up to the Plate - 24th July 2008 ...on Burn Up - 17th July 2008 A culture announces its values by the bits of the past that it honours - 10th July 2008 ...on Bonekickers - 3rd July 2008 The sudden and upsetting death of Tim Russert of NBC feels absolutely presidential - 19th June 2008 ...on Tennis - 12th June 2008 ...on Mad Men | Love Soup | Peep Show - 5th June 2008 A survey shows that 22% of viewers suffer recognised symptoms of mourning when a favourite series ends - 29th May 2008 The FA Cup Final - 22nd May 2008 The Duke - If there were a Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme for television documentary, The Duke (ITV1) wouldn't even have a shot at a bronze - 15th May 2008 ...on Election Night 2008 (BBC1) - 8th May 2008 ...on Question Time - 1st May 2008 ...on Bafta Television Awards | Britz | The Mark of Cain - 24th April 2008 ...on Britain's Got Talent - 17th April 2008 There are many programmes that can be watched with the sound turned off - 27th March 2008 ...on Christian programming - 20th March 2008 As individual programmes become more important than networks the titles of shows have increased in importance - 13th March 2008 The release of interrogation-room telly by the police surely advances the case in favour of courtroom TV - 6th March 2008 ...on BBC1's Ten O'Clock News - 28th February 2008 Lily Allen and Friends - 21st February 2008 What's the point of cabvision? - 27th December 2007 How Christmass is too Christmassy?: ...concepts of public service television and multiculturalism - 20th December 2007 Snobbery is no longer possible: ...the relationship between television and the stage - 13th December 2007 Are right-of-reply shows a public tactic or a public service? - 6th December 2007 Football and the theory of 'relativity': The off-pitch drama... - 29th November 2007

News & updates:

References:

Links: The First Post: articles Wikipedia bio