Television / Radio

Surprising actors in a 1980 TV series

On Monday I watched Bergerac, now shown at 3.00pm on the UK Drama channel. It featured – as Belle Young, an eccentric boatowner and smuggler – the 1970s actress Judy Cornwall. Yesterday’s episode about a computer convention in Jersey also featured a computer nerd and mogul Jordan [...]

January 8, 2025 // 0 Comments

My Sporting Weekend

The Border-Gavaskar trophy between Australia and India has done much to enhance and elevate the status of Test cricket. India won the First Test in Perth – Australia levelled the series in Adelaide – and the Third Test in Brisbane was a washout draw. Australia won the Fourth Test in [...]

January 5, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Tanner Report: Chelsea 1 Fulham 2

In 1963 – on Boxing Day – Fulham beat Ipswich, who were the champions the previous year, by 10-1. 63 goals were scored in the old First Division that day, one other result being West Ham 2 Blackburn 8. Fast-forward to 1979 when Fulham last beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (2-1). I was at [...]

December 27, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Critic (2023 movie)

I missed out on this film on general release and watched it yesterday on Amazon Prime. It’s based upon the Anthony Quinn novel Curtain Call but fell short of the book. It featured Ian McKellen as the acerbic Daily Chronicle theatre critic Jimmy Erskine modelled on James Agate. Set in the 1930s, [...]

December 24, 2024 // 0 Comments

George Eastham (RIP)

I was truly saddened to hear of the death of George Eastham, chiefly for two reasons. Firstly, he belonged to a genre of player that no longer exists: the inside forward. They were technically very skilful, slight and did not score that many goals. Secondly, aged 18, I was watching from behind [...]

December 23, 2024 // 0 Comments

Two detective dramas from different eras – The Chelsea Detective & Bergerac

Last Friday I watched my recording of The Chelsea Detective. (I prefer to record as I find the advertising breaks – especially this time of year – so tedious and can fast-forward through the ads.) A good detective drama requires location and an eccentric sleuth (Hercule Poirot being [...]

December 22, 2024 // 0 Comments

Gloucester Rugby 14 Harlequins 0 (Rugby Premiership)

This was one of the most inept performances I have seen from Quins. Their big players – Marcus Smith, Fin Baxter, Chandler Cunningham South and Caden Murkey – failed to perform. In the first half they were comprehensively overwhelmed by the physicality of the Cherry Reds. We expected [...]

December 21, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Tanner Report: Liverpool 2 Fulham 2

Where do you start praising Fulham for coming away from Anfield with a point? Not by reading the press reports who uniformly wrote of a “10 man come back” from “never say die” Liverpool. Never mind that Liverpool are arguably the best team in the world right now. Of course, [...]

December 15, 2024 // 0 Comments

Alan Bennett looking back aged 90

He would not like the phrase – and nor do I – but Alan Bennett is a ‘national treasure’. Last night, aged 90 and in a wheelchair, he looked back on his life and body of work. It brought back many memories. Forty Years On with John Gielgud would be up there with Shadowlands as [...]

December 14, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Day of the Jackal (Sky Atlantic)

This mega-production by Sky starring Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Logan and Charles Dance inevitably invites comparison with the Frederick Forsyth best-selling novel and the 1973 Fred Zinnermann film with Edward Fox. Frederick Forsyth admitted that he was paid vast amounts of money to do nothing or [...]

December 13, 2024 // 0 Comments

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El Cid/The book and the film

January 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

I was recently given a new biography of El Cid, the Spanish 11th Century knight, by Nora Berend, a Cambridge University historian. Her thesis is that Rodrigo de Viva – [...]
The Tanner Report: Fulham 4 Watford 1

January 10, 2025 // 0 Comments

Reporting on this victory is secondary to commenting on the decline of the FA Cup in my lifetime. The year of my birth (1954) witnessed what many consider the greatest game [...]
Foreign detective writing

January 9, 2025 // 0 Comments

We tend to assume that only English-speaking writers can write detective novels. In Britain the genre is dominated by women – Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Marjoriec [...]
Surprising actors in a 1980 TV series

January 8, 2025 // 0 Comments

On Monday I watched Bergerac, now shown at 3.00pm on the UK Drama channel. It featured – as Belle Young, an eccentric boatowner and smuggler – the 1970s actress [...]
The Tanner Report: Fulham 2 Ipswich 2

January 6, 2025 // 0 Comments

Against Wolves, Southampton – and now Ipswich – Fulham have earned just 2 points, but 5 against Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. We do better against the big boys. [...]