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3 items from 2013

9 February 2013 4:06 PM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

Stephen Poliakoff's new 1930s drama was, though pleasing to the eye, typically perplexing

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Stephen Poliakoff's reputed brilliance is so often prefaced by the words "maddening" or "frustrating" that I wonder whether the words that spring to my own mind when I think of his dramas – ie "bloody awful" (I'm thinking of the laughable The Tribe or the implausible Shooting the Past or even his voyeuristic incest melodrama Close My Eyes, the latter two garlanded with industry awards) – are too far off the mark. The BBC loves him, of course (seeing him as a maverick in the mould of Dennis Potter), and I loved him once myself, for his flawless Caught on a Train, with Peggy Ashcroft and Michael Kitchen, but that was in 1980. He's had his moments »

- Phil Hogan

27 January 2013 4:05 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

He has unparalleled creative freedom within the BBC. But, as Stephen Poliakoff's latest lavish drama reaches our screens, what does he make of his reputation for being a control freak?

'I'm quite sure," Stephen Poliakoff giggles, "there are people within the BBC who run down the corridors blocking their ears when they see me coming." His reputation certainly precedes him – a great galloping colossus of media folklore, variously casting the writer as a genius, control freak, force of nature or diva, sometimes all at the same time. Descriptions of his appearance err towards cartoonish caricature – dishevelled, wild-haired, fidgety, like a mad professor who has accidentally electrocuted himself – only adding to the mythology of a wild man of letters. But to everyone about to fall in love with his latest drama, Poliakoff may well soon be at real risk of becoming a national treasure.

Dancing on the Edge is set »

- Decca Aitkenhead

27 January 2013 4:05 PM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

He has unparalleled creative freedom within the BBC. But, as Stephen Poliakoff's latest lavish drama reaches our screens, what does he make of his reputation for being a control freak?

'I'm quite sure," Stephen Poliakoff giggles, "there are people within the BBC who run down the corridors blocking their ears when they see me coming." His reputation certainly precedes him – a great galloping colossus of media folklore, variously casting the writer as a genius, control freak, force of nature or diva, sometimes all at the same time. Descriptions of his appearance err towards cartoonish caricature – dishevelled, wild-haired, fidgety, like a mad professor who has accidentally electrocuted himself – only adding to the mythology of a wild man of letters. But to everyone about to fall in love with his latest drama, Poliakoff may well soon be at real risk of becoming a national treasure.

Dancing on the Edge is set »

- Decca Aitkenhead

3 items from 2013