Beau Brummell: This Charming Man (2006)

Cautiously Recommended

UK
Television Film
Director: Philippa Lowthorpe
Writer: Simon Bent
Cinematographer: Graham Smith
Composer: Peter Salem
Cast: James Purefoy, Hugh Bonneville, Phil Davis, Zoe Telford, Matthew Rhys, Nicholas Rowe, Ian Kelly, Elliot Levey

An enjoyable, contemporary feeling look at a brief period from the life of the notorious, fast living, and troubled titular fashion icon, which makes the most of spirited performances and a delightful score, but as entertaining as it often is, one can’t help but wish for a little more depth to the decidedly light-weight proceedings. Iain.Stott

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A Voyage Round My Father (1982)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film
Director: Alvin Rakoff
Writer: John Mortimer
Cinematographer: Tony Pierce-Roberts
Composer: Marc Wilkinson
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates, Jane Asher, Elizabeth Sellars

Olivier’s superb performance enlivens an otherwise pedestrian but nevertheless heartfelt television film, based on Mortimer’s autobiographical play, which explored his relationship with his blind, cantankerous father from childhood till the father’s death, but the film does have some rather touching moments not the least of which is the aforementioned death scene. Iain.Stott

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Duel (1971)

Recommended

USA

Television Film
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Richard Matheson
Cinematographer: Jack A. Marta
Composer: Billy Goldenberg
Cast: Dennis Weaver

This intense, suspenseful, and expertly constructed television film from a young Spielberg – a cat-and-mouse chase thriller, following a man on a business trip as he is hounded mercilessly by a homicidal truck driver – easily manages to hold the attention despite being essentially a one-man play with very little in the way of dialogue. Iain.Stott

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Wall of Silence (2004)

Recommended

UK
Television Film
Director: Christopher Menaul
Writer: Neil McKay
Cinematographer: Lukas Strebel
Composer: John Lunn
Cast: James Nesbitt, Phil Davis, Ross Boatman, Jay Simpson, Stephanie Leonidas, Sophie Stanton, Calum Callaghan, Freddie Cunliffe, Matt Carpenter, Holly Weston, Mary Anne Parker, John Joseph, Barry McNicholl, Adam Deacon, Emory Ruegg, Luke Strain, Danny Young

Based on a real case, and avoiding any sign of sentimentality or sensationalism, it should come as no surprise that this ITV production, following a murder case from brutal death till emotional conviction, feels horribly authentic and viscerally credible, and, thanks in the main to some excellent performances, this often hard-to-watch television film is a humanity-drenched and vital experience. Iain.Stott

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The Steamie (1988)

Recommended

UK
Television Film
Director: Haldane Duncan
Writer: Tony Roper
Cast: Eileen McCallum, Dorothy Paul, Katy Murphy, Sheila Donald, Peter Mullan

Written by Rab C. Nesbitt’s Tony Roper, this 1953-set comedy drama, following a gaggle of Glaswegian women as they make their final trip to the steamie before Hogmanay, with its brilliant, naturalistic, gosipy dialogue and uniformly excellent performances, and despite some rather unneeded and not particularly well done musical fantasy sequences, is a hilarious and tremendously moving work of television that deserves to be seen by a larger audience than those of its annual Scottish television broadcasts. Iain.Stott

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Dustbin Baby (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film
Director: Juliet May
Writers: Helen Blakeman, Jacqueline Wilson
Cinematographer: Chris Goodger
Composer: Adrian Johnston
Cast: Dakota Blue Richards, Juliet Stevenson, David Haig, Chris Ryman, Leah Ferguson, Sylvia Hodgson, Alex Hewett, Lucy Hutchinson

A relatively harrowing, considering its target audience, account of one young girl’s life in care, told primarily in flashback, with excellent performances from Richards and Stevenson, beautifully paced, and with a delightful score from Johnston, this sensitive and delicate BBC production more than earns its warm-and-fuzzy ending (although, perhaps, not the one that you might be expecting.) Iain.Stott

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The 39 Steps (2008)

Recommended

UK
Television Film
Director: James Hawes
Writers: Lizzie Mickery, John Buchan
Cinematographer: James Aspinall
Cast: Rupert Penry-Jones, Lydia Leonard, David Haig, Patrick Kennedy, Alex Jennings, Eddie Marsan, Werner Daehn

This logic-defyingly entertaining adaptation of Buchan’s novel, a handsome BBC production, following Richard Hannay in the company of a beautiful and spirited suffragette on the lam to Scotland, pursued by police and German spies, is admittedly rather silly, but it is also really rather sexy, swiftly paced, and shamefully, guiltily pleasurable. Iain.Stott

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