Colm Meaney

News, Reviews & Features
  • Hell on Wheels: The Complete Third Season DVD

    TV Review | Ed Williamson | 22nd August 2014

    No one makes engaging drama about the people who built the first British railways, do they? No, we just get documentaries about it on BBC4 presented by men in cardigans. Did the British railway pioneers spend half their time shooting folk, throwing back sippin' whisky and frequenting mobile brothels? Probably not, and anyway, no one wants to see them do it.

  • Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

    Movie Review | Ali | 5th August 2013

    Steve Coogan has been Being Alan Partridge for over 20 years. Over two decades, Norwich's finest broadcaster has read the sport on Radio 2, manned the sports desk on The Day Today, transferred his skill-set to chat in his very own talk show, traded his fame for a sitcom in a travel tavern and broadcast his unique stylings ("equidistant between chit-chat and analysis" - Ross Kemp) on the world wide web. Now, Alan Partridge is welcomed to big school: his very own feature film. Alpha Papa is clearly not the best fit for a character for whom even the small screen is too big, but it is as funny as the format allows. For a character who has survived 20 years on every broadcasting medium under the sun, it's a remarkable feat that Partridge has never outstayed his welcome.