Joe Exotic is an ordinary American
He is perhaps a little too fond of drugs and weaponry, but he has also overcome great personal misfortune
James Delingpole
James Delingpole reviews television for The Spectator.
Thursday
The Amazon Prime doc that will convert anyone to cricket
From our UK edition
Imagine rooting for the Australian cricket team. If you’re Scottish, Welsh or Irish — or Australian obviously — it might not be such a stretch. But for an Englishman, I suspect, it’s nigh on impossible. It would be like supporting Germany in the (football) World Cup. Or yearning for the All Blacks to win the
Saturday
Why I’ve never regretted turning down Have I Got News For You
From our UK edition
They pay you a lot of money to go on Have I Got News for You? Around £5,000, I think, which is a decent whack if you’re a starving hack. But still I turned it down when they asked me on a couple of years ago and I’ve never felt the slightest flicker of regret.
Sunday
My ‘quirky’ must-see shows – and why I was never interested in The West Wing
From our UK edition
Welcome to part two of my personal guide to the absolute must-see TV shows of the last few years. It is, as you might have already guessed, very idiosyncratic. No The Wire? Nope, ‘fraid not. I found it dreary and unintelligible. No, The West Wing? Also no, for ideological reasons. I’m simply not interested in
Saturday
A Formula 1 doc for people who hate Formula 1
From our UK edition
Some years ago I was invited to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone courtesy of a watch manufacturer. As freebies go it was one of the best: endless champagne, overnight in a posh hotel near the track (wife invited too), then a trip by helicopter so as to avoid all the frightful traffic jams. All
Saturday
Foreign language TV is without the political correctness spoiling English drama
From our UK edition
Every cloud has a silver lining. Never again are you likely to have a better opportunity to catch up with those classic TV series your friends have been banging on about but which you’ve not had time to see. I’m not saying my own list is definitive, only that if you’re not blown away by
Sunday
Should ‘Spanish flu’ have been known as ‘American flu’?
From our UK edition
There’s an ongoing debate in the media as to whether or not president Trump is being ‘racist’ by repeatedly referring to Covid-19 as a ‘Chinese’ virus. ‘It’s not racist at all,’ Trump insisted at one press conference. ‘It comes from China, that’s why.’ This is at least objectively true – unlike the case with Spanish
Saturday
Old-school Sunday-night family viewing: ITV’s Belgravia reviewed
From our UK edition
The world may be going to hell in a handcart but some things remain reassuringly unchanged: Julian Fellowes period dramas about feisty dowager duchesses, social climbing and snobbery, say. I like and admire Fellowes so I don’t want him to take this the wrong way. But when I say that his new series Belgravia (ITV)
Tuesday
The refreshing darkness of Netflix’s Locke & Key
The world before woke
Saturday
Malorie Blackman’s Noughts + Crosses has nothing to tell us about Britain today
From our UK edition
The BBC could scarcely have chosen a less auspicious time to release as its flagship Spring drama an adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s contentious, race-baiting Noughts + Crosses. For one thing, it is under increasing pressure to demonstrate that it is not purely the propaganda arm of the liberal, metropolitan elite. For another, a dystopian fantasy
Thursday
The best Gangster shows to binge-watch this weekend
From our UK edition
Gomorrah (Sky) Life in the Naples Mafia (the Camorra) is nasty, brutish, short – and nothing like Goodfellas. Even when you’ve made your millions from the drugs trade, there’s nothing to spend it on save your fleet of armoured 4 x 4s and your gilded cage in some bleak, rundown suburb which it’s never safe
Saturday
Too edgy and clever to be wasted on kids: Netflix’s Locke & Key reviewed
From our UK edition
One of my perpetual gnawing terrors is that I’ll recommend a series that looks initially promising but turns out to be total rubbish, meaning I’ll for ever have thousands of viewers’ wasted lives and disappointment on my conscience. But my even greater fear is that I’ll peremptorily condemn something after one or two episodes which
Why I’ve lost respect for Jeremy Clarkson
From our UK edition
If Jeremy Clarkson had lived through the Wars of the Roses he would have been neither a Yorkist nor a Lancastrian. He would have lurked in his castle, reassuring each side of his unswerving loyalty, till the moment came when Richard III lost his crown. At this point Clarkson would make his position absolutely clear:
Saturday
Hunters is 2020’s most ridiculous series
From our UK edition
What a brilliant idea the concept of Hunters (Amazon Prime) must have sounded after the third or fourth Martini. “So, like, it’s set in the 1970s and America is swarming with Nazis. Actual Nazis. They’ve infiltrated every level of society and they’re totally evil and powerful, like vampires with swastikas. And all that stands in
Saturday
The appeal of psychopaths
From our UK edition
Ever since the end of Gomorrah season four (Sky Atlantic) I have been bereft. I eked it out for as long as I could, going whole weeks without watching an episode — rationing it and savouring it as you do when you’re down to your last Rolo. But eventually I could put off the climax
Friday
The Democrats are fracking insane
Proposing a ban is election suicide. The Democrats are doing it anyway.
Cats: The Snuff Movie
Too many Netflix true-crime documentaries are tiresome and overlong. This one was a lot worse than that
Saturday
SAS: Who Dares Wins is harsh, gruelling and transgressively countercultural
From our UK edition
SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sundays) is literally the only programme left on terrestrial TV that I can bear to watch any more. And I’m only slightly exaggerating. Where else, anywhere from the BBC to Channel 4, would you see a woman being punched in the face and made to cry by an ex-SAS
Saturday
How to be a man
From our UK edition
The river of death has brimmed his banks And England’s far and Honour’s a name But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks ‘Play up! Play up! And play the game!’ Even as long ago as the first world war, men bitterly mocked the tritely jingo-istic sentiment of Sir Henry Newbolt’s poem ‘Vitaï
Monday
The Witcher’s hours
Medieval gore for millennial gamers
