I’m well aware that this blog has basically become an Apple TV+ review site, but everything I’ve watched on there so far has been really good quality. Okay, sometimes it doesn’t completely hit the spot (Truth Be Told) and some things just don’t look that interesting to me to even start (Servant) but what I’ve seen, I’ve liked. This time, it’s the turn of MythicQuest: Raven’s Banquet – a workplace …

Little America, the anthology series on Apple TV+, came at the perfect time in our household, as we’d just finished indulging in Modern Love and were in the right head-space for the ‘different story every episode’ style. Little America takes the formula and applies it to immigrant stories across a broad range of ages and lifestyles and all walks of life in the US. There were eight episodes and it …

The background: I love Peter Kay's Car Share, I truly believe it to be one of the best TV shows of the decade. When I shared the show with Mr C, he was also on board - comedy and music aren't too hard to argue with. On the flip side, one thing we argue about more than we probably should is the guilt of the protagonist of Richard Marx's song …

This week, I got to see The Bodyguard musical on the final stop of its UK tour. Based on the film of the same name, Alexandra Burke heads the cast with her phenomenal vocal powers bringing to life those infamous Whitney Houston classics. She was joined by Ben Lewis in the role of Frank Farmer (portrayed by Kevin Costner in the movie). And therein lies the problem. I was forever …

You'll know by now, I'm sure, that I'm obsessed with Oprah's Book Club. The interactivity between online books, the show, the guidance, the discussion with the author, all of it appeals to me. We recently saw the latest episode of the TV show, where Oprah talked to Elizabeth Strout about her latest work, and it was another good show - another, in fact, that Mr C enjoyed despite not having …

I've long since been a fan of the Red Arrows, those crazy pilots that take to the skies for close formation flying and manoeuvres that quite frankly boggle the mind. The TV show that aired on Channel 5 this time last year was a great insight into the highs and lows of the group trying to get their display ready to perform. Injured pilots, new leaders and commentators, and a …

I picked up tickets for the Strictly Come Dancing live tour back in November, when Strictly fever was at its height - in my household anyway. We were heading rapidly towards the finale with a good few names still left with a chance of winning (even though we all knew it would be Kelvin). Fast-forward to the post-Christmas slump and the tickets didn't really make sense anymore. The Strictly mood …

James Corden's latest riff off sees him take on Camila Cabello in a slightly fake debate about which is better for music - 1999 or 2019. You can see the results below but I'm pretty sure they came to the wrong conclusion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0350tpXN-Q Even within the video itself, the older songs are so much better! Camila is a far superior singer to James, I'm sure he'd agree, but even she …

Having loved both For All Mankind and The Morning Show, I was expecting big things from the next AppleTV+ adventure – this time, a crime mystery with a podcast host at the helm. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite stand up to the competition even within its own broadcaster, let alone looking further afield. Let’s start with the good, though, the cast were great and they did the best they could with …

Stumbling across the TV show Modern Love was a weird experience – it was promoted on the Apple TV homepage and warranted further investigation. When we saw it was created by John Carney, who was also behind some of our favourite Dublin-based films, then it was a given we were going to watch this one. Anthology series’ aren’t always my favourite, but when they’re done well, like Black Mirror and …

When Apple Arcade launched, I was very excited and blogged about it a couple of times. I intended to try ALLLLL the games, even though there were over 100 at launch and the collection was only going to grow. If I’m honest, I tried out a handful, mostly the ones mentioned in those prior blog posts and realised the rest didn’t really appeal. And now, for the moment, I’ve cancelled …

This week, the BBC aired a celebration of Miranda Hart's self-titled sitcom that has been in our lives for ten years already. That seems like a bizarre amount of time to have passed but what would we have done without it? I remember bidding the show a fond farewell at the time it left our screens and it was so nice to revisit our beloved characters just a few years …

Everyone has their own unique way of dealing with the apps on their phone. Some are very organised, keep everything in folders, download an app, try it, store it or immediately delete it. Others, like me, are a bit more haphazard about things: lots of apps that have been downloaded to try, lots of things taking up space that don’t need to, half-hearted folders and a bit of a mish-mash …

This seems to be a bit of a tradition now, making a handful of resolutions on this blog for the coming year. I try not to put too much pressure on myself to achieve these things, because twelve months is a long time and who knows where we'll all be at the end of it? But sometimes it's nice to have some guidance, so I've got some more for 2020. …

The flagship offering of Apple TV+'s launch was The Morning Show, a complicated drama set in a network television morning show and featuring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston as sparring and unwilling co-anchors. The show came in for a lot of early criticism, being a bit corny, full of tropes and stereotypes and generally not telling the story well. I didn't get any of that. There were a few cliches, …

So I did this round up last year, quickly running through other posts that had already collected upcoming releases and pulling out films that I thought I'd be interested in. Turns out, I picked twelve films and only managed to watch half of them. Oh well! Let's see how well I do this year. For reference, I've looked at the BBC, a selection from Total Film and a pretty long …

It's that time again! A whole year of music listening gets distilled down to a choice of five top albums and seeing if any of them can break into my top ten of all time. I don't usually enjoy this process and this year hasn't been any different, although if I'm honest, the choice was slightly less inspiring than usual. It felt like the year was very top heavy in …

If you've followed my adventures, you know I've gone back and forth on the whole album thing, but I think getting to the end of my fourth year of listening to two albums a week (400 albums!) means that I'm on board. So I was surprised when I first heard that Sheryl Crow wasn't going to make any more records after her latest release Threads. At the time the album …

I don't know if it's just me, but Christmas television this year hasn't felt as special or as inspiring as it sometimes does. There's no Christmas Doctor Who special, and no superb films finally showing on TV, so that the only thing to look forward to seemed to be Gavin & Stacey. Wait a minute, Gavin and Stacey returning after a decade?? Yes! Many, many, many of us were looking …

As is tradition now, I have come to the latest Sims game very, very late. When I talked about The Sims 3, it was about four years after the game had been released. I love a good late review, honestly. Well, The Sims 4 is slightly different. I did download it slightly nearer its release date - 2017, I think. But it didn't work on my Mac, because it's an …

When I first wrote about For All Mankind, it was out of duty rather than enjoyment really. This was a show about the moon with a sprinkling of feminism and couldn’t have been made more for me if it tried. I talked of how the first episode dragged and the second picked up and by the third I was hooked. Well, I should have sensed the pattern there because every …

I had heard that a new version of Baby It's Cold Outside was going to be released, with updated lyrics, but I hadn't heard it until recently. Kelly Clarkson and John Legend have rewritten the old classic which has come under fire for some difficult lyrics that could be considered to fall on the wrong side of consent. I do get why the old song is problematic for some people. …

Final thoughts! How can it be over already? I mean, I know it's been weeks and we've all been on a journey and it'll be quite nice to have my Saturday nights back but still... it's all done! What a final show it was, kicking off with an incredible routine, and featuring Taylor Swift, plus all the old gang back for one more round including lovely Will! I really, really …

Whilst we’re on a roll with female representation in our entertainment spaces, the Country Music Awards this year were an incredible show of women’s strength. Hosted by Reba, Carrie and Dolly, the show kicked off with a medley of songs from many, many, many women from throughout recent country music, including many I’d never heard of and need to know more about. (Who knew Delta Dawn wasn’t just the song …

I had seen in passing the news that James Corden was taking a break from his Late, Late show for other projects and guest hosts would be filling in. Alicia Keys kicked things off but it wasn’t until I caught the clips on YouTube that I realised just what a fab job she’d done. We all know already that Keys is brilliant, but her take on the year wrap-up is …

Somehow we have whittled the contestants down to just four and it's time to wave goodbye to the one who will miss out on the final. Somehow it feels so soon that we have reached this point, and yet when you watch the titles it's like "oh yea, they were in it, that was so long ago!" Time is weird. Anyway, here's how my thoughts flowed as the couples tried …

As soon as it hit December, I restarted my Netflix subscription, because there’s no way I was going to miss out on all those cheesy Christmas movies. However, the bonus alongside festive treats is catching up on the big series’ that were released over the last six months that I have fallen behind on. Starting with the final ever series of Orange is the New Black, bringing to a close …

We watched the third movie in Netflix's Christmas Prince franchise this week and... huh. It was an experience. I've obviously reviewed the film itself in the proper place but I wanted to expand upon this with a note about the fiasco that is the credits. The normal movie credits roll, that's fine. Cast, crew, music and location credits. Then we get to the geographic specific stuff, the dubbing and additional …

Quarter finals, musicals week, the famous five, all the ingredients for a fun show. It's amazing how short and sweet the broadcasts are now - just an hour of dancing and we're done. But we're getting close to the end now, who will miss out on the semi-final spot? Here's my thoughts throughout the show. --- This is an opening. Anton and Kevin singing?? Craig? Bruno being under-utilised for a …

This time last year, I had seen zero music concerts. Basically my entire life. Plenty of theatre and musicals and stuff, but no musicians up on stage giving it their all. Fast forward twelve months and I've wrapped up my fifth visit of the year with a similar number already scheduled for next year. Turns out I was missing out on quite a lot and I have a lot of …

When Mischief Theatre announced a year-long residency at the Vaudeville in London, I was intrigued and determined to see as much of the output as possible. I've previously seen their plays and pantos and bank robberies that go wrong, and consider myself officially obsessed with this comedy troupe. The first of three shows wraps up this weekend, and I just managed to catch Groan Ups "before term ended". Unlike The …

Okay, people, things are getting serious. Partly because Saturday night was some of the first wine I'd had after being ill for a bit, and also because we're edging closer to the part of the competition where all the episodes end in -final. Whoever gets through this is into the quarter-finals, Musicals week. Let's go! Actually, before we start, just gotta say... Bruno sings?? --- AJ and Saffron up first …

When I told people I was going to see Charles Esten, I was usually met with a confused "who?" which, unless you are a fan of the TV show Nashville, is totally fair enough. Esten featured on that show as Deacon, one of the main guitar-playing country-singing characters through the entire run. And so, even though I didn't really know much of him outside of this show, seeing him pop …

I am intensely aware that my recent posts have been all Apple this and Apple that. With Arcade and Books and Oprah and Swift and more, it's like everything has come out all at the same time. I'm loving the content on Apple TV+ but some of it has been harder work than others. Dickinson was a surefire hit, but For All Mankind took some perseverance. The first episode didn't …

Blackpool! That's all we need to say about that. In other news, at this point, all the dancers left are really good and have earned their spot on the big ballroom floor, so I was looking forward to this show being of really high dance quality... and I wasn't disappointed! --- Great opening number with all the professionals, celebrities, and the bonus Blackpool dancers. It was quite weird to see …

I knew I was going to love Dickinson because, from the trailer, it was a modern take on the early life of this infamous poet. I'll be honest and admit to knowing little about Emily other than her name, but as soon as I knew Hailee Steinfeld was in it, I was on board. And it was SO GOOD. Ten half-hour episodes of Hailee and her friends reinventing what a …

Sure, the last thing the world needs is another television streaming service and yes, there is a question mark about where Britbox sits in the current market but you know what? I kinda like it. Britbox is a long-in-coming platform initiated by ITV and the BBC, with Channel 4 and Channel 5 on board, to offer UK-based programming to mostly a UK-based audience. It sounds like a good thing, bringing …

This is the time of year when people start talking about the C word - that festive period where you will either be wondering how much cash you might receive as a gift, or pondering how much it might be wise to spend on eggnog, or maybe even thinking about how you can revamp your finances for the new year. I've thought about money and finances a lot this year …

Is it Blackpool time?? Not quite yet but it is Blackpool drinking time. DRINK. I actually didn't think the number of B word mentions was as high as it has been in the past, but maybe I was just mellow with a glass of wine in hand. It's that point in the competition, unfortunately helped by Will's early exit, that when the dancers gather on the floor at the beginning, …

At the start of this year, I made good progress with learning Swift but of course two things got in the way - real life, and then SwiftUI. When SwiftUI was announced in June, it sounded too good to be true (anything to not have to use interface builder anymore) but I figured I'd be better off waiting to see what it had to offer before continuing my journey. I'm …

Well this was a tough one, wasn't it? The halfway point, hooray, the dancers are really starting to get it all together. But we had to wave goodbye to Will, which was very sad. And poor Neil also had to sit out another week and hand over the dance to a thankfully slightly more prepared Kevin. Here are some thoughts as the whole thing unfolded. --- Karim and Amy. "Not …

Apple TV+ launched on Friday and yes, you can expect plenty of future updates on the content that came with it. Dickinson was mega! But this isn't about that. This is about the first episode of Oprah's Book Club distributed by Apple. I've already discussed how I dived right in and started reading the book as Apple quite cleverly coincided the book club with their new reading goals in the …

This past week, the BBC aired their behind the scenes documentary about how their latest Children In Need initiative came together. A handful of actors got together to record an album of covers, solo songs that are personal to them for a variety of reasons and a group track to finish it all off. The 90 minute programme followed their journey from selecting the songs through perfecting their vocals and …

The US version of The Office has been off air for over six years, but it is barely out of the public consciousness and rarely a day goes by that I don’t see an Office gif fly by on my Twitter stream. The success of the Office didn’t diminish the brilliance of the original UK version but it certainly dwarfed it in popularity – spreading its wings to be much …

Oh, Halloween week. And this time someone is dancing to the Backstreet Boys. Hooray! I'm surprised that we haven't started hearing all about Blackpool yet, but perhaps that is the next milestone? Who will get there? Read on! --- Hope Will gets better soon, oof! And Neil! Although I have to say, Kevin, of course, fits Ghostbusters very well. Loving that the name patch clearly has space for four letters …

I recently discovered the podcast Robot or Not which is an audio show where: "Jason Snell asks John Siracusa to rule on the meaning of various words and concepts. It’s not just about robots anymore." I have been listening to the entire back catalogue, partly because the episodes are so short but also because they're so fascinating. As the title suggests, the concept started out solely about robots but has …

This week, guest judge Alfonso Ribeiro sat in for Bruno Tonioli. He did the same thing last year, but I wasn't watching then, so it was the first time I've seen him in action. Such fun! It was actually quite nice to have a bit of a different line up, I wouldn't want there to be guest judges every week, but it's no bad thing to hear from different voices. …

I can’t commit to listening to Beats 1 on a regular basis, as much as I love what they’re doing on the Apple Music platform – but there’s one thing I try very hard not to miss, and that’s Julie Adenuga’s Friday show. It’s Fridaaaaaaaaay. I love Julie, and her weekday show is excellent, crammed with music and interviews that sometimes veer slightly too grime for my tastes but otherwise …

Many moons ago, I wrote about Duolingo, the language learning app that uses short lessons, goals and badges to encourage you to reach your targets. I’ve dipped in and out of that app over the years and for some reason, just recently, the obsession grabbed me once again. I downloaded the app and was impressed with some of the new content since the last time I looked at it. Not …

It only took four weeks to get some Strictly Come controversy but I have to admit I was surprised by the bottom two and the subsequent decision by the judges. However, before we get there, here are some quick notes about the dances as they happened. --- Chris Ramsay went first, and I quite enjoyed the inside basketball included in the dance. It was good although I'm not totally sure …