Tony Way

Rhys Thomas reviews 2019 in his usual inimitable way

Spandau Ballet global superstars Gary and Martin Kemp, their lives, and their careers.

7/10

What started off as a whirlwind romance takes an unexpected turn when Mark discovers his beautiful bride-to-be is plotting against him. In cahoots with an old school buddy, they hatch a plan to take half of Mark’s £20 million fortune and use it for their own happy ending. What they don’t realize is that Mark is one step ahead of them.

5.6/10

Roman teenager, Atti is forced to join the Roman army when one of his clever schemes falls foul of Emperor Nero. He is sent to "miserable, cold, wet Britain" where "the natives are revolting - quite literally". Things go from bad to worse when Atti is captured by Orla, a feisty teenage Celt desperate to prove herself as a warrior.

5.2/10
6.9%

Tony had a perfect life. But after his wife Lisa suddenly dies, Tony changes. After contemplating taking his own life, he decides instead to live long enough to punish the world by saying and doing whatever he likes from now on.

8.5/10
7.4%

A troubled kid forced into boring work experience on his Uncle’s road crew discovers it is actually hiding an amazing secret.

7.1/10

After Nick's girlfriend dumps him, his best mate Shane has the perfect antidote to his break-up blues: three days at an epic music festival.

5.8/10
8%

On the outskirts of Birmingham and the margins of society the Billingham family perform extreme rituals and break social taboos as they muddle through a life decided by factors beyond their control. At times shocking and laced with an unsettling humor, three episodes unfold as a powerful evocation of the experience of growing up in a Black Country council flat.

6.7/10
9.6%

Based on Jo Brand's critically acclaimed novel of the same name, The More You Ignore Me is a warm, comedy drama focusing on the life of an unconventional family in 1980s rural England. The film focuses on Gina, a young mother, whose efforts to be a loving mother and wife are undermined by her declining mental health. Things deteriorate when she develops an obsession with the local weatherman, which leads to an admission to the nearby psychiatric hospital. Over the years, as she grows up, her daughter Alice struggles to relate to her heavily medicated mum, and causes chaos when she comes up with a plan to reconnect with her, which divides the family forever and leads to a moving climax. Set to the songs of The Smiths, The More You Ignore Me provides a sometimes stark, yet comical insight into life within this quirky household, whilst addressing mental health issues and their impact on the family.

5.8/10
8%

Three generations of the rowdy Cutler family live as outlaws in some of Britain's richest countryside – hunting hares, ram-raiding stately homes, and taunting the police. Struggling to retain a way of life fast becoming extinct, Chad Cutler ends up caught between his father's archaic principles and trying to do right by his kids, whilst the full force of the law is finally catching up with him.

5.8/10
5.7%

A washed up actor best known for playing the title character in the 1980s detective show "Mindhorn" must work with the police when a serial killer says that he will only speak with Detective Mindhorn, whom he believes to be real.

6.3/10
9.2%

A fly-on-the-wall mockumentary following the day-to-day reality of being Nigel Farage. How does a man forever in the spotlight fill his days now he has nothing to do?

4.7/10

Each week Successville's loveable detective, D.I Sleet, enlists the help of a celebrity sidekick to solve the latest high-profile murder in this improvised comedy murder mystery series.

7.8/10

Identicals is a highly unconventional romantic thriller: an obsessive love story stripped down and re-arranged into the looping logic of a nightmare.

5.7/10

Life for the residents of a tower block begins to run out of control.

5.6/10
6%

Alpha Male Smith and his Beta, Keith, move to take over a local community. They hook up with restless Female, Denise, igniting a deadly feud in which emotions run high and deep-seated grudges resurface amongst the tribe. Are we not men? Or are we simply beasts? Steve Oram, the actor/writer from SIGHTSEERS and KILL LIST stars in his long-awaited debut feature with a host of his friends. Get ready for the most unusual celluloid primal scream - an anarchic, hilarious, disturbing and touching look at the human condition. THEMROC meets PINK FLAMINGOS in the Cult Movie of the Year.

4.5/10
7.9%

Major Bill Cage is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously demoted and dropped into combat. Cage is killed within minutes, managing to take an alpha alien down with him. He awakens back at the beginning of the same day and is forced to fight and die again... and again - as physical contact with the alien has thrown him into a time loop.

7.9/10
9%

When three fidelity phobic misfits find themselves in the same cafe, their love and hate for all things romance related make them far more similar than they think.

4.6/10

When the newly-regenerated doctor arrives in Victorian London, he finds a dinosaur rampant in the Thames and a spate of deadly spontaneous combustions.

7.9/10

Feel the tension. Feel the heat. Listen to the beat! Join the Ginger Goofball in 50s America as he struggles with love, friendship, and the rebelliousness of youth.

Film follows two friends attempting to rob a petrol station, but are so useless that they end up working there all night.

6/10
8%

Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.

6.5/10
8.5%

Dick and Dom's Funny Business is a British comedy television series for children, hosted by comic presenting duo Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood. The series is broadcast in a Saturday morning slot on BBC Two and simulcast on the CBBC Channel, and is Dick and Dom's return to Saturday mornings following the success of Dick and Dom in da Bungalow, which ended in Spring 2006. Unlike ...da Bungalow, which was largely broadcast live and ran for up to three hours with inserted content, ...Funny Business is a pre-recorded, self-contained one-hour programme. The first series began in January 2011 and is due to run for 13 episodes. The format of the series is that Dick and Dom are the hosts of a comedy club-style event; external shots of the theatre which supposedly hosts the venue are seen as establishing shots during the programme. The theatre's American owner is not himself seen on screen, though his daughter Kelly-Anne Manhattan is part of the recurring cast. The duo introduce a range of guest comedy acts who each perform an on-stage sketch/stand-up routine, and between these the viewer sees behind-the-scenes skits involving the duo, recurring characters and guests, and also interwoven into the show are a number of separate recorded skits and sketches featuring additional cast members and characters not featured in the main show.

4.1/10

This English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson follows a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, as he investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.

7.8/10
8.6%

Set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her, the story advances the theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford who penned Shakespeare's plays.

6.9/10
4.5%

One-off comedy special. On the mean streets of Vange in Essex, naive police community support officer Len is the victim of a cruel hoax perpetrated by 'proper copper' PC Preston. Meanwhile, there have been a series of bizarre thefts at the station and PCSO Kelly thinks she knows who is responsible. Fellow 'plastic policeman' Perry doesn't know who to help - Len, Kelly or retiring colleague Chester.

7.8/10

A parolee battles a gangster for the affections of a reclusive movie star.

6.2/10
3.8%

Rock stars do their bit for a good cause with this festive single from 1983.

Mongrels, formerly known under the working titles of We Are Mongrels and The Un-Natural World, is a British puppet-based situation comedy series first broadcast on BBC Three between 22 June and 10 August 2010, with a making-of documentary entitled "Mongrels Uncovered" broadcast on 11 August 2010. A second series of Mongrels began airing on 7 November 2011. The series revolves around the lives of five anthropomorphic animals who hang around the back of a pub in Millwall, the Isle of Dogs, London. The characters are Nelson, a metrosexual fox; Destiny, an Afghan hound; Marion, a "borderline-retarded" cat; Kali, a grudge-bearing pigeon; and Vince, Nelson's friend, a sociopathic foul-mouthed fox. The show is aimed at an adult audience, features "neutering, incontinence, cannibalism and catnip overdoses" and humour styles such as slapstick and farce. For example, the first episode begins with a scene in which Marion, portrayed as desperately trying to revive his deceased owner, learns she has actually been dead for four months, whereupon he casually gives his cat friends permission to eat her. Mongrels has attracted accusations of plagiarism, with claims that Mongrels stole ideas from a similar Channel 4 show called Pets.

8.3/10

An adaptation of the bestseller of the 1980s by Martin Amis

After serving jail time for a mysterious crime, Bill and Karl get out of jail and become preoccupied with figuring out who turned them in to the police. On top of that, the "family business" is on the rocks, and the motley crew of criminals who operate out of Down Terrace aren't feeling terribly trusting of one another. It might look like an ordinary house, but at Down Terrace, the walls are closing in..

6.5/10
8.6%

A documentary film crew follows the first carbon neutral, organic, vegetarian expedition ever to attempt the North Pole. Simultaneously Saving the Planet and getting into the Guinness Book of Records Brian and Mark hope to kill two birds with one stone. Unfortunately, they have never done anything like this before.

5.8/10
6.2%

Blunder was a Channel 4 comedy sketch series shown in the UK on E4 and repeated on Channel 4. No announcement of a second series has been made.

4.7/10

Tittybangbang is a female-led television sketch comedy, performed by Lucy Montgomery and Debbie Chazen, which ran between 2005 and 2007 on BBC Three. The show was largely written by Bob Mortimer and Jill Parker and produced by their company Pett Productions.

4.7/10

Fun at the Funeral Parlour was a comedy series broadcast on BBC Choice for two series in 2001 and 2002. It was set in a Welsh funeral directors called "Thomas, Thomas, Thomas and Thomas". The series was written by Rhys Thomas, who also starred alongside William Thomas, Alex Lowe and Tony Way. Thomas created the show at the age of 20, after contributing to The Fast Show.

7.7/10

Bang Bang - It's Reeves and Mortimer continues the anarchic and surreal blend of offbeat comedy that has made the duo so popular. The series is arguably a continuation of The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, although a number of new characters were added. There's also a spoof fly-on-the-wall documentary about Baron's Night Club – a clear precursor to Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights . The high-voiced Stott brothers--who appeared in Vic Reeves Big Night Out --return to terrorise celebrities. The show capitalised on the duo's success with the spoof game show Shooting Stars and brought in a darker edge to their humour.

7.8/10

Vic & Bob are on a road trip across England as they search for an elusive piece of celebrity memorabilia - Michael Jackson's "training" glove.

5.3/10