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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

Flintoff & bulimia

This is something of a first for me as I’m not so much reviewing a programme I have seen but explaining why I will not be watching one. The editor was comfortable with this. As he put it: “On the Rust anything goes …” I cannot  imagine why the BBC should make a programme featuring [...]

October 1, 2020 // 0 Comments

Sue McGregor

Sue MacGregor  is a hero of mine so I listened avidly to the Archive on Four on Radio 4 last Saturday for her celebration of five decades as a broadcaster. It sums up her qualities that she treated the programme as a news broadcast. She was neither bitter nor boastful. She merely recounted how she [...]

September 25, 2020 // 0 Comments

The demise of ITV and the rise of Talking Pictures

ITV has dropped out of the FTSE 500 which reflects a broadcasting company in trouble if not in crisis. Covid has ravaged advertising revenue and new productions. Britbox has not taken hold. It’s sad as ITV in its time though its local franchises like Thames produced much popular successful [...]

September 3, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Plot Against America/Sky Atlantic

I have the advantage over some reviewers as I have read Philip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America twice. I am now three programmes into the HBO adaptation and enjoying it hugely. I do not find knowing the novel well a hindrance – more a blessing as you wonder how the actor has [...]

July 24, 2020 // 0 Comments

Will the real Poirot stand up?

I have now seen all the re-runs of Series one of Poirot. Hugh Fraser plays the dim, bespoke Captain Hastings, Philip Jackman Inspector Japp with trademark flapping raincoat as brilliantly caricatured by Stephen Fry in Gosforth Park and Pauline Moran the bossy secretary Miss Lemon. The second [...]

July 14, 2020 // 0 Comments

Das Boot (episodes 3 & 4)

Das Boot is for me the most captivating series on TV and after 4 episodes I’m totally hooked. There are three locations each with their own story line and a different language. The first is the U-boat and this is truest to the 1981 film. A U-boat skipper has broken ranks and is about to defect. [...]

June 18, 2020 // 0 Comments

Das Boot

I was so pleased that the second series of this German broadcast was back on screen. It’s based on the 1981 film but the series oscillates between the U-boat and La Rochelle, the port where many U-boats were berthed. The original film did not feature La Rochelle but both series and the film gave [...]

June 11, 2020 // 0 Comments

COPENHAGEN/MICHAEL FRAYN/RADIO 3

I had reservations about listening to the broadcast last night on Radio 3 of Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen for 3 reasons. Niels Bohr 1) It is based on the meeting in 1941 of two leading physicists Niels Bohr, a Jewish Dane, and Werner Eisenberg, a Jewish German who headed up the Nazi nuclear [...]

May 25, 2020 // 0 Comments

Fauda (chaos)

This is a Netflix production featuring an operative unit of Israelis who conduct hit operations in Gaza. It’s obviously a hit as in its third series.  Series like The Spiral in its 7th series show that team movies are popular. These have been the subject of successful films like The Magnificent [...]

May 8, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Reunion/radio 4

Yesterday was the last in the Reunion series presented by Sue MacGregor. I have written before how much I enjoy it. A group gather before Sue MacGregor and remember a past event in which they were all involved. Yesterday’s topic was the young girl singers of the sixties: the contributors were [...]

April 27, 2020 // 0 Comments

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