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Articles by Bernadette Angell

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About Bernadette Angell

After cutting her journalistic teeth in Boston USA, Bernadette met and married an Englishman, whom she followed back to London. Two decades and three children later, they divorced. She now occupies herself as a freelance writer (credits include television soaps and radio plays) and occasional amateur gardener. More Posts

Churchill’s Secret

ITV rolled out its mega Sunday Drama Churchill’s Secret last night but I cannot say I gave it the victory sign. A programme about a stroke sufferer albeit Winston Churchill is always going to struggle so it was starting at a disadvantage. As something of an aficionado of Churchill, I could [...]

February 29, 2016 // 0 Comments

The Night Manager

In the Rust we have been praise-worthy of seventies drama and critical of the contemporary especially by comparison to Nordic  Noir. However I can only laud BBC’s latest effort for Sunday The Night Manager as an espionage thriller. It is based on a John Le Carre novel but adapted to the [...]

February 23, 2016 // 0 Comments

Delusion – or the art of getting the wrong end of the stick

In the world of television it is an eternal article of faith that there exists absolutely no accounting for taste and no correlation at all between quality of production and popular success. Back in the days when I worked briefly in the UK television industry I soon lost count of the number of [...]

December 23, 2015 // 0 Comments

Minder and the class divide

When I first started to re-watch Minder on ITV4 I was attracted by its humour both in dialogue and characterisation. Then I began to appreciate the quality of George Cole’s acting which he learned from his adopted father Alastair Sim, in particular his brilliant facial expressions. I then [...]

December 15, 2015 // 0 Comments

The Bridge

Its good to see the Danish/Swedish co production of The Bridge back on our screens. A successful enduring series needs a memorable detective be him a scruffy sleuth like Colombo or a social inadequate like Saga Loren played by Sofia Helin. The Killing set the tone with Sarah Lund (Sofie Grabol) [...]

November 23, 2015 // 0 Comments

The Beatles Top 25

Last night I was divided at 8pm between The Moral Maze on radio 4 examining the latest athlete drug revelations, Cuffs and a programme showcasing the best 25 most popular Beatles songs as selected by ITV watchers. I was put off The Moral Maze when presenter Michael Buerk attacked the taking of [...]

November 12, 2015 // 0 Comments

Television: past and present

At the risk of being a bore [surely not, Editor] I continue to enjoy the vintage retro tv of the seventies and eighties shown on ITV4. I have praised the quality of the scripts, the acting and the creation of memorable  characters in Minder and The Professionals but there are two more features [...]

November 3, 2015 // 0 Comments

A Brit doing well in the USA

James Corden – he of improvised comic skills in providing assistance to Comic Relief and ‘live’ presenting of the BBC Sports Review of the Year – is now apparently, after somewhat mixed early reviews – knocking the ball out of the park on his Late Late Show in the [...]

September 16, 2015 // 0 Comments

An Inspector Calls

I have a terrible confession to make: I have never seen a JB Priestley play nor read any of his books nor essays. Whilst reviewing a programme about Churchill’s electoral defeat of 1945, I spoke to Henry Elkins about him. He told me that he was the son of a headmaster from Bradford and [...]

September 16, 2015 // 0 Comments

ITV IN THE SEVENTIES

Sporting Rusters often advocate the seventies as the Golden Age of sports commentary so here I make the claim that it was equally a peerless epoch for tv serial dramas. I chanced upon The Professionals rather by fluke a few months ago. Now it’s a rare day when I do not watch one episode on [...]

September 9, 2015 // 0 Comments

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