Jasper Rees

London

I do Wood work. Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood. Victoria Wood Unseen On TV (ed), Chunky (sort of ed). VW gems on Archive on 4: 14/12

Articles

CAUGHT, review: tiring hostage comedy tries to hit too many targets

3 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Jasper Rees

Shall we start with the title? C*A*U*G*H*T (ITVX) begs for attention through the medium of capitals and asterisks. Imagine if everyone made their show look like a finicky password. S/T\R/I!C\T/L\Y. ?QUESTION? ?TIME?. B@K£ ŒUF. It would get irritating in a heartbeat. C*A*U*G*H*T doesn’t require typography to achieve that outcome.
tiring hostage comedy tries to hit too many targets

3 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Jasper Rees

A geopolitical incident is soon the talk of the international airwaves. The joke is that the soldiers, seemingly in danger, really collaborate with their captors by making a fake hostage video. Then the US gets involved, rendering this a most strange Australian-American hybrid. Almost every male Aussie here - soldier, politician, broadcaster - is some form of idiot. The female characters are all feistier and, of necessity in this patriarchy of plonkers, cannier.
lifeless reconstructions aside, plenty for Janeites to tuck into

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Jasper Rees

" Jane Austen changed fiction forever." For once the hyperbole is apt. Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius (BBC Two), following similar series on Shakespeare and Mozart, considers the woman who permanently reset the course of comic fiction. The edutainment format established by 72 Films offers, once again, a mixed grill of clips, talking heads and dramatic reconstruction, with Juliet Stevenson's reassuring voice-over.
the story of the Napoleonic superstar chef is whipped into a sexy soufflé

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Jasper Rees

That Carême worked for Talleyrand (Jérémie Renier) is the drama's core ingredient. For the grandmaster of chicanery, he cooks up a storm to achieve political goals: please Bonaparte, sway the exiled Louis XVIII, send a coded message to a political prisoner. There's even a cooking compo which is essentially MasterChef in perruques. As a barely glimpsed Napoleon gears up to be crowned emperor, the plot pouts and schemes through a maze of interpersonal twists and geopolitical turns.
Black Bag is about as good as mainstream filmmaking gets

Mar 17, 2025 | thespectator.com | Alexander Larman |Byron’s Women |Jenny McCartney |Jasper Rees

If you would like to see that rarest of endangered species — a smart, witty and original 90-minute thriller aimed at adults — then stop reading this review immediately and go and see Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag. It is a film that is probably best enjoyed by going in entirely blind, where the bare bones of the premise, revolving around a husband-and-wife pair of British spies who find themselves under suspicion of treachery, possibly by one another, is all you need to know.
Towards Zero, review: a sexed-up, slang-filled spin on Agatha Christie

Feb 27, 2025 | telegraph.co.uk | Jasper Rees

Between 2015 and 2020 Sarah Phelps dramatised five stories by Agatha Christie for the BBC. The results were stylish, steamy and lavishly well cast. In Towards Zero (BBC One) the adaptation duties have been handed on to Rachel Bennette, who takes charge of a double murder in a posh pile on the Devon coast, but we remain very much in Phelpsland. As in Ordeal by Innocence and The Pale Horse, this is richly handsome to look at.
Best Interests Reviews

Jan 23, 2025 | metacritic.com | Carol Midgley |Lucy Mangan |Jasper Rees |James Hibbs

The final instalment in the quartet, which plays out as a courtroom drama, lacks something of the vital intimacy of Best Interests’ early moments. But the writing is humane throughout, managing to stay witty and lively, even as the gut-wrenching power of the story encroaches. Read More
the frocked sleuth returns like a dose of vitamin D

Jan 10, 2025 | msn.com | Jasper Rees

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Father Brown, review: the frocked sleuth returns like a dose of vitamin D

Jan 10, 2025 | telegraph.co.uk | Jasper Rees

Father Brown (BBC One) is the scheduling equivalent of a vitamin D shot. Filmed in summer, when leaves are out and flowers in bloom, every winter since 2013 the daytime drama lands like a warming ray of sunshine. GK Chesterton’s titular gumshoe may be robed from neck to ankle in black, but he has the warm forgiving aura of a guilty pleasure. Once upon a time the good father was much admired by Kingsley Amis, PD James and even, if you please, the Italian communist thinker Antonio Gramsci.
The Amazon Review Killer, review: bizarre story of a murderer who wrote reviews of his weapons

Jan 6, 2025 | telegraph.co.uk | Jasper Rees

The democratised space of the Amazon review is open to all comers, and anything goes. Authors get praise from friends and family and even, under pseudonyms, themselves. Customers may trash a product if they don’t like the packaging. And then there is the chilling case of The Amazon Review Killer (Channel 4). Todd Kohlhepp, a South Carolina realtor, used the site to purchase offensive weapons and, like a good citizen, reviewed them. “Haven’t stabbed anyone yet,” he wrote of a dual-edged blade.