Benji Wilson

London

Journalist and Critic at Freelance

journalist and critic | https://t.co/28xTMYfxFX

Articles

Natasha Lyonne's crime caper remains rootin'-tootin' fun

6 days ago | telegraph.co.uk | Benji Wilson

What's supposed to happen in a sophomore season is that we deep-dive into Charlie's backstory, maybe get a flashback episode to unpick her childhood trauma or meet her wacky parents. Poker Face doesn't do that and is all the better for it.
Long Way Home, review: what Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman need to do is have more rows

6 days ago | yahoo.com | Benji Wilson

The celebrity travel beano has a long and largely undistinguished history, always underscored with a bass note of “Why?”. In the case of Long Way Home (Apple TV+), Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s fourth motorbike trip, the “Why?” appears to be because, in 2019, Boorman had a serious crash, and this is his mate trying to gee up his old buddy. And so off they go again, this time on a round-trip taking in a good chunk of Scandinavia and Western Europe.
Man Like Mobeen, review: this final series remains culturally authentic - and really funny

1 week ago | yahoo.com | Benji Wilson

The launch of the fifth and final series of the comedy Man Like Mobeen (BBC Three) is, at the very least, a reminder to go back and watch the other four. This is a perfect example of how low-budget, very British, small-scale sitcom can still work in the age of bottomless-pocketed streamers and truncated attention spans. I say it “can” work. Depending on what you read, Man Like Mobeen has either been cruelly “axed” by the BBC or star and creator Guz Khan doesn’t want to do any more.
Man Like Mobeen, review: this final series remains culturally authentic

1 week ago | telegraph.co.uk | Benji Wilson

The launch of the fifth and final series of the comedy Man Like Mobeen (BBC Three) is, at the very least, a reminder to go back and watch the other four. This is a perfect example of how low-budget, very British, small-scale sitcom can still work in the age of bottomless-pocketed streamers and truncated attention spans. I say it "can" work. Depending on what you read, Man Like Mobeen has either been cruelly "axed" by the BBC or star and creator Guz Khan doesn't want to do any more.
How to write a whodunnit - with help from AI-gatha Christie

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Benji Wilson

Agatha Christie is the world’s best-selling author, so if you wanted to learn how to write a crime novel she’s the first person you’d ask. Unfortunately, she died in 1976. But in the age of AI, with a plot twist that would assuredly have had Christie herself itching to incorporate it in a book, death need not be the end. A new BBC Maestro course of online video lessons, made in conjunction with Christie’s estate, brings the queen of crime back to life.
How to write a crime thriller

2 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Benji Wilson

Most of all, she says, in a computer-generated voice that somehow defies all dissent, you "must play fair" with your reader. Set that puzzle, ask the questions, but don't expect them to use their own little grey cells to unpick mysteries that can't be unpicked. So I make sure to introduce the detective, a sidekick (the reader's eyes and ears) and the murderer in the first few pages. And so with all that in mind, I present to you my first attempt at a crime thriller.
before Jamie Oliver, cooking was for losers

2 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Benji Wilson

The films about Andres, Keller and Waters are if anything even more beautiful to look at (side issue, but food photography in 2025 is so good it is practically Pavlovian) but, as with the Oliver film, they also tease out how something as high-end as fine dining trickles down into mainstream culture. Andres, for example introduced the small plates phenomenon to American cuisine (for which this diner thinks he should be par-boiled, though opinions may differ).
the journey may now feel familiar, but it still dazzles

3 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Benji Wilson

But back to the LODRIT. For its fifth season the producers of RATW have chosen neither to stick nor twist but to stickily twist. The race this time is from northern China to the southern tip of India, via Nepal, so it's another exacting schlep. The teams are, again, a mother/son combo, a pair of bluff Northern brothers, one rich one poor, a sweet, very young couple from small town Wales, a pair of sisters with a substantial age gap and a pair of lifelong friends from Birmingham.
The Doctor and his new companion are making history in the Tardis

3 weeks ago | smh.com.au | Benji Wilson

, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. It is a good sign, surely, that Doctor Who and his new time-travelling companion seem to get along. When we enter the room to interview Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu in New York, they are in fits of laughter. It is the back end of a conversation about their mothers washing dishes.
the TV equivalent of an airport read

4 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Benji Wilson

Anyway, The Stolen Girl is the TV equivalent of an airport read, schlocky trash that moves at a breakneck pace.