pandlstringer Reviews

Bangkok Hilton (1989)

First Rate

[9/10 · 29 November 2011]

This is a gripping Australian mini-series. Kidman provides a top class performance, while Elliott and Weaving are superb. It captures your attention and retains it firmly throughout. The London scenes somehow evoke in an intangible way an accurate sense of the late 1980s and add to the plausibility.

Once you've watched this you will never again go through customs without a mild sweat and when you see a white sheet hanging out to dry you will go wobbly at the knees.

This is a tale of determination, friendship and redemption that creeps up on you and gets under your skin.

Brides of Christ (1991)

Best mini-series of the 1990s

[10/10 · 4 February 2011]

Brides of Christ did for mini-series of the 1990s what Tenko did for the same in the 1980s. My wife and I have watched the series several times and it has left us moved on each occasion. It's a great narrative of Vatican II, a story in which liberal and traditional collide, but which reveals that Christian love and charity can prevail where a foundation of faith is to be found.

Mother Ambrose is the epitome of wisdom, Sisters Catherine and Paul are a beacon of friendship, Sister Agnes provides a solid baseline without which the other arguments would be rudderless, while Bridget, Rosemary and Frances supply the sort of youthful passion that is full of innocence and truth.

A superb cast including early outings for Messrs Russell Crowe and Naomi Watts.

Cardiac Arrest (1994–1996)

Tremendous

[10/10 · 23 November 2010]

Gripping, compulsive viewing. This series was the BBC at its best. It sits alongside the likes of Tenko, Edge of Darkness, Brideshead Revisited, This Life as the cream of British drama. Its dark, uncompromising humour never failed to entertain thoroughly. It was so good as it managed to be left field but not esoteric, funny but not soft, sexy but not gratuitously so. It remains Helen Baxendale's best work by a country mile.

This sort of drama has been lost to a seemingly unending tidal wave of reality TV banality. Series producers need to watch this time and again to understand what really works.

It died too soon.

Tenko (1981–1984)

The BBC's Best Drama

[10/10 · 5 March 2010]

Tenko is a series I first watched at the tender age of 13 years back in 1981. From the word go it gripped. The acting is supreme: Ann Bell, Stephanie Cole, Stephanie Beacham are tremendous. The viewer lives and breaths the ordeal of the characters in a way that no other TV series has ever managed. It is head and shoulders clear of the rest. Having purchased the full DVD set, including reunion, a handful of years ago I am shortly to embark on my tenth viewing of the run.

I was sorry to have missed Paul O'Grady's 25 year celebration in October 2007. I can't believe that the cast are now approaching 70. It makes me feel old and long for the days before reality TV ruled when good drama and sitcoms proliferated.