There seems to be a clear and predictable trajectory now for ‘network original’ productions, pioneered by Netflix, of course, and followed by Amazon Prime and, at some distance, Sky. That trajectory is: scooping up bargain rejects from other production companies, buying slightly better/ more viable productions of modest quality, co-financing ambitious productions and then, finally, self-financing…

It’s been a dark and terrible night so far for Ebeneezer Scrooge (Guy Pearce) and it’s not been too kind on this particular viewer either. The handsome and haunting production values haven’t quite managed to make up for the needlessly profane and relentlessly grim retelling of Dickens’ immortal classic. I mean, this is a level of darkness even Frank Cross in his heyday would have blanched at.

And…

There may be more of gravy than of grave about the hauntings according to Dickens but this adaptation is more concerned with drinking the grimdark Kool-Aid rather than the meat of this story. Marley and the ghosts continue to conspire to punish and persecute Scrooge in order to drive him to repentance so that Marley may exit his purgatorial prison, reducing the redemptive enlightenment at the…

The BBC’s latest unprovoked assault involving classic literature literally opens by taking the piss, surely a record when it comes to metatextual fourth-wall breaking.

Surely we can all agree that what Charles a dickens’ classic tale of regret and redemption has been missing is a padded-out prequel detailing a Jacob Marley’s journey through purgatory which then fundamentally alters the moral of…

The 1988 Michael Caine/ Ben Kingsley movie “Without A Clue” asked what would happen if Holmes was actually an idiot and Dr Watson was the genius but “Holmes & Watson” dares to ask what if they were both imbeciles, in a crass and witless farce? The answer is excrementary, my dear reader.

When the trial of Professor Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes) collapses after Sherlock Holmes (Will Ferrell) exposes the…