Njs2016

I was about ten minutes in when I started to think that this must be an AI script. I was about seventeen minutes in when I realised it couldn't be AI because it couldn't be this bad.

Or to make my point, the approach of the screenwriter seems to be ' it's old so I'll overwrite everything and add a MY LORD' to the end of every line'

So in tribute to the so so lacklustre plotline I'll sign off in the same style.

'I was but a viewer of this tale, My Lord. To Sky I had pledged my coin and thus I found myself watching this shortly before I took to my bed weary from toil. My Lord, it prepared me well, as its soporific words did come over my ears like an alpine horn. By God! That is Swiss and proud to be..My Lord'.

Nice mountains, lots of running about and a nice holiday for Sir Jonathan Pryce and Sir Ben Kingsley I hope. Just a total bore.

Avoid like curdled alpine milk.

The cast of this are uniformly brilliant. Led by Matthew Goode who just keeps getting better and better with every role. Support comes from Kelly Macdonald, Mark Bonnar and a beautifully understated but pitch perfect performance by Alexej Manelov.

The show is so full of twists and turns that I won't put too much about the 'cold case' that they find themselves working on, but suffice to say it is a shocking, twisty, rollercoaster of a plot. Well adapted and translated to Scotland without a problem.

The show can be bleak, can be violent but balances this with humour and brilliant design, photography and sound.

The breakout performance here is from Chloe Pirrie who gives such a journey across the nine episodes that surely a BAFTA or EMMY nom should be in the offing.

Don't miss it and I hope and trust a Season Two will follow as this is the best crime show to hit the screen since Slow Horses.

Highly recommended.

This is a moving documentary. As far from 'drive to survive' and it's fictional concoction of racing as you would get.

Damon Hill has always been an outsider, who conversely should have been the ultimate insider. The documentary skims across his early racing on motorbikes and his journey into formula one.

In two sections though it really works well, the post Imola section where we get to see the moment that Hill discovered his inner racer in the wake of Senna's death. Damon speaks with customary truthfulness and understatement and it's enthralling.

The second section is more of a theme that runs throughout the movie. The sense of the loss of his father. Grand Prix champion Graham Hill. The documentary ultimately balances the career and the journey of a son to walk in his illustrious father's footsteps really well. Without ever being mawkish or sentimental.

It's probably a documentary for dipped in gasoline petrol heads like me, but as a document of one of the finest and most sporting of sportsmen it is a very good watch.

Damon Hill always came across as a gentleman and here he does prove the gentle men can come first and do have steel and grit. You can do it all on your own terms with luck and a fair wind.

Recommended.