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2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2005
4 items from 2012
Six to watch: Prison series
23 February 2012 8:08 AM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
With Prisoners' Wives locking in the viewers, we look at which prison-set shows are key and which are past their cell-by date
With Prisoners' Wives proving surprisingly gripping, Jj Abrams' new drama Alcatraz set to start on Watch next month and NBC developing a Us remake of Bad Girls, it seems that the prison drama has found a new lease of life. So here's our guide to six of the best prison-set series. Let us know what we missed out below.
Oz (1997-2003)
There are prison shows and then there is Oz. Tom Fontana's unholy tale of life in the Oswald State Correctional Facility was the first drama series produced for HBO and remains one of its best. This was the prison drama at its most stripped down: bloody and brutal, and featuring astonishing performances from the likes of Dean Winters (cocky Ryan O'Reilly), Christopher Meloni (smouldering Chris »
- Sarah Hughes
Harry Enfield: 'I can't get out of bed if I've got to do the same thing over and over again'
22 January 2012 4:05 PM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
The comedian Harry Enfield has killed off almost as many characters as he has created. His latest project sounds like the strangest yet: a film his next-door neighbour asked him to appear in – in exchange for a baked potato
Harry Enfield used to live next door to the man who owns Spudulike. One day the potato-based entrepreneur rang him up and said: "I'm going to make a film with my own money, and I think it could be quite fun. It will only take two weeks. Would you mind being in it? I can't pay you, but I'll give you a free potato." Enfield didn't even stop to think. "Yes," he said.
"Well, of course! He was my next-door neighbour." If my next-door neighbour rang me up and said he had never published a magazine before, but was starting one, and would I write for it, I don't think I'd be wildly keen. »
- Decca Aitkenhead
Your next box set: Porridge
18 January 2012 7:26 AM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
There's a sadness and bitterness beneath the laughs in the one-of-a-kind TV wonder of Porridge
Memory plays tricks, of course. Mine tricked me into believing that Porridge ran to countless episodes. In fact, there were just three series, of six episodes each, plus a couple of Christmas specials and a pilot. To put that in perspective, Ronnie Barker spent less time on our TV screens as Norman Stanley Fletcher, habitual criminal, than Alec Guinness did as wily spy George Smiley. I was also convinced that the most memorable characters were constants, but they weren't. Genial Harry Grout, the lag who runs Hmp Slade's rackets, appears in only three episodes, for example.
Nearly 40 years after it appeared – it ran on BBC1 from 1974 to 1977, before Barker decided he didn't want the role of Fletch to become a millstone – Porridge is still an extraordinary programme. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais created something »
- Michael Hann
Blu-Ray Review: Killer Elite – Statham & Owen Go Head To Head In Flawed Actioner
16 January 2012 10:38 AM, PST | Obsessed with Film | See recent Obsessed with Film news »
After the likes of Crank and Shoot ‘Em Up, the prospect of seeing fellow Brit action stars Jason Statham and Clive Owen go head to head is certainly an exciting one. It is therefore intriguing that they chose a relatively low-key true life thriller Killer Elite, released on Blu-ray and DVD this week, as the film that brings them together on screen for the first time.
Based on Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ 1991 novel The Feather Men, the film follows ex-special ops agent Danny Bryce (Statham) as he is lured out of retirement to rescue his mentor Hunter (Robert De Niro) who has been taken hostage in Oman by Sheikh Amr (Rodney Afif) after failing to accomplish a mission for him. Bryce makes a deal to finish the mission which involves killing three former Sas assassins protected by a secret society known as the Feather Men led by Spike Logan (Owen). A »
- Chris Wright
2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2005
4 items from 2012
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