Shenton's View: A friend once sagely remarked that you can’t fight a hit - and just as critics have been powerless to stop the waves of musical mediocrity represented by the likes of We Will Rock You, Dirty Dancing and Never Forget (the latter of which just yesterday announced an extension of its current booking period to November 15 at the Savoy, with plans to then transfer to another West End theatre), so it is utterly pointless to resist the onward onslaught of Disney’s High School Musical. Yes, I know that I’m...

TV Today: Reviewing any episode of Doctor Who is a tricky task at the best of times. I find it increasingly difficult to detach my fan brain and approach each episode without the baggage of forty-odd years of history and emotional attachment to the series’s overall canon....

Shenton's View: I don’t know about you, but I’ve been having withdrawal symptoms from my self-imposed “blogging leave” of the last week. And being entirely away from the theatre, too, for a full week has been a bit surreal (yes, life - and the theatre - does go on without me!). But I’ve also been discovering how very tiring it is to do so very little! During my week in Gran Canaria I wrote a bit every day, and of course checked the web daily for breaking news, at least of the...

TV Today: Return to… Vets in Practice (Monday 7.30pm, BBC2) Do you remember the bizarrely popular Vets School *and the subsequent *Vets in Practice? It was a hugely popular fly on the wall series that introduced us to a group of young vets, including Trude Mostue, Steve...

TV Today: Coronation Street (Friday 7.30pm, ITV1) There’s a definite sense that Corrie is treading water at the moment. It’s probably down to the summer malaise that hits TV, but there’s no sense of momentum or building storylines. The most interesting to do down the cobbles at...

TV Today: I had to read this news report several times before the words ‘human’ and ‘Tetris’ penetrated my conscious thought, then it took a while for me to work out that the words were meant to go together. The n when you add in the words...

TV Today: This may be the one piece of television news that Kevin Spacey doesn’t want to hear (save for any further announcements of theatre casting shows), but the BBC is putting its weight, and its reduced budgets, behind drama series and serials rather than single plays....

TV Today: Do you ever get the feeling that when it is placed under the wider scrutiny of its peers and industry regulators such as Ofcom, that BSkyB (forever to be shorted to good old “Sky”), just stamps its feet like a spoiled child worrying about a...

In The Paper: In this week’s issue of The Stage: Student Showcase reviews special: Reviews of graduate showcases from Birmingham School of Acting, Central School of Speech and Drama, E15 School of Acting, Guidford School of Acting, LIPA, Laban, Laine Theatre Arts, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Circus...

TV Today: Well thank you very much Russell T Davies! How on earth do you review that, eh? Perhaps the most bonkers, delicious, audacious, brilliant, silly, exciting and scary piece of Doctor Who seen in the 45-year history of this crazy, unstoppable TV series. The Stolen Earth...

TV Today: Criminal Justice (Monday - Friday 9pm, BBC1) Bill Patterson and Ben Whishaw star in this thoroughly compelling and highly watchable drama stripped nightly across the week, a device the BBC appears to be increasingly fond of. Whishaw is Ben Coulter, a young lad who sets...

Shenton's View: You sometimes see review columns, particularly with the Sunday papers, by-lined by an unfamiliar name (except to eagle-eyed regular readers who actually keep track of who’s who in the critical world), being footnoted with the declaration that the usual critic “is away”. This keeps their name in currency and suggests that they will be back. The daily papers, of course, have teams of critics; so when - as he has been for the last couple of weeks - Benedict Nightingale of The Times doesn’t appear, they don’t draw attention to...

TV Today: Glastonbury (various times, Friday-Sunday, BBC3/BBC2) If you fancy a lazy weekend hanging around the house, then at some point you’re going to come across the Beeb’s Glastonbury coverage. It’s always well done, and a great way to see some of the acts while having access...

Shenton's View: It’s a recurring theme here to note just how swamped with openings we occasionally become - just three Mondays ago I came back from New York to the prospect of three clashing first nights on that same night, while the next night had two, as I reported here. At least it meant that I was spared having to see Dickens Unplugged (which is officially unplugged tomorrow); but if only we could have been spared All Bob’s Women, too. However, that has managed to arrive in a week when we have...

TV Today: Aw bless! I was very heartened by this lovely story over on The Stage’s news pages, reporting on Sooty’s 60th birthday and how he has been bought out from his current owners by the show’s presenter, Richard Cadell. Cadell hopes to bring the enduring TV...