Donald Clarke

• Television
• February 13, 2013, 11:54

I know you don’t care, but here’s another storm in a suburban teacup from the Daily Mail. Apparently Jeremy Paxman, host of University Challenge, has attracted fury for sneering at a student who confused William the Conqueror (gang name: The …

• Television
• February 1, 2013, 21:11

There’s been a lot of chatter about awards season already. You can enjoy the Oscarologists on Gold Derby. You can read dry loot-related stuff at Variety. But the best chatter on the SAGs and the Golden Globes has definitely been …

• Television
• January 5, 2013, 20:11

As media-watchers will be aware, the Daily Mail sees itself as the guardian of British morality. Any perceived slump in ethical standards triggers extraordinary degrees of teeth gnashing. That paper was, famously, the prime mover in transforming Jonathan Ross and …

• Television
• December 29, 2012, 20:33

For my generation, there were two undisputed giants of children’s television. Oliver Postgate, the creator of Pogle’s Wood, Bagpuss and the Clangers, died on 2008. Anybody even vaguely interested in his life should seek out his excellent autobiography, Seeing Things, …

• Television
• December 12, 2012, 00:35

It’s sort of a rhetorical question. But I suspect the answer “yes” will be forthcoming from every direction. It’s a strange beast, this sketch show. The firmly talented Harry Enfield and the genuinely brilliant Paul Whitehouse have been given  their …

• Television
• August 13, 2012, 22:47

One upside of the end to the Olympics is the return of the superb daily quiz show Pointless. Am I alone in being utterly, hopelessly addicted to the BBC1 series? I think not. All kinds of celebrities seem to have warmed …

• Television
• October 30, 2011, 19:21

You may have read a bit about Ricky Gervais recently. The chatty comic got himself in trouble for using a dodgy word — look it up, I’m not going there — repeatedly on some sort of social networking thing. This …

• Television
• September 5, 2011, 21:32

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t feel the need to point the reliably well-informed readers of this “blog” towards a landmark TV series such as Mark Cousins’s The Story of Film: An Odyssey. After all, if you visit this place regularly …