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BILLY JOEL: AND SO IT GOES It seems odd to reference the Liverpool Football Club legend Bill Shankly while reviewing a music documentary but here we go. However one of Shankly's best known quotes is his observation that in football "form is temporary, class is permanent". The quote needs amended slightly for the music industry where trends are temporary but class is permanent. That's unquestionably the point of Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin's epic two part HBO documentary 'Billy Joel: And So It Goes'. The New Yorker has for decades been one of the most accomplished singer songwriters to grace American rock, folk and pop. He's enjoyed phenomenal success - selling over 160 million records, winning six Grammy Awards and numerous other accolades, earning acclaim as a live artist with a groundbreaking and record breaking monthly residency in New York's Madison Square Garden. Yet for much of his fame, he was looked down upon and derided by music critics -...

  THE NAKED GUN We all know Liam Neeson can do comedy. We've seen him do it before in small doses. The Northern Irish actor  had the best moment in Ricky Gervais' BBC sitcom 'Life's Too Short'  with his improv sketch. Then there was in  the cereal scene in Seth MacFarlane's 'Ted 2' . There have also been chances to test his comic chops in 'Derry Girls, '  on Stephen Colbert's chat show  and as  Good Cop/Bad Cop in 'The Lego Movie' . But can he carry a whole comic movie? Neeson gets the chance to find that out in Akiva Schaffer's 'The Naked Gun' - a reboot of  David Zucker's 1988 comedy classic with Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy and OJ Simpson . Produced by Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins and working from a script by Schaffer, Dan Gregor and Doug Mend, Neeson has a very high bar to clear - playing the son of Nielsen's bungling detective Frank Drebin. Like Frank Snr, Neeson's Frank Jr is an ...

  MIX TAPE For the pre-Spotify generations, the mix tape is an iconic symbol of the analogue age. A cassette lovingly compiled by music fans, it was a token of affection given to lovers or friends. It was also a chance to share the music you loved and hopefully win over the recipient to an artist or album they had never really listened to before. A compilation of songs recorded from vinyl records, CDs or audio cassettes, it inspired the Yorkshire writer Jane Sanderson's 2020 novel 'Mix Tape'. That novel has been brought to the small screen by Screen Australia, Screen Ireland and the Australian streaming service, Binge. Directed by Lucy Gaffy with a screen adaptation by Dublin author Jo Spain, the four part series is a ' Normal People ' and ' One Day ' style tale of thwarted love. Set over two decades mostly in Sheffield and Sydney, Jim Sturgess plays Dan O'Toole, a rock music journalist who is married to Sara Soulie's Katja.  Still living in Sheffiel...

UNFORGIVABLE  When Jimmy McGovern finally gives up writing for film and television, he should do so with immense pride. No British television dramatist has matched McGovern when it comes to regularly creating quality dramas that confront the toughest of subjects. From male rage to racism, sexual repression to disability, miscarriages of justice to poverty, the Liverpudlian appears to have covered it all. Yet here is again shining a light on another difficult subject with compassion and consummate skill. 'Unforgivable' tackles paedophilia or, to be even more precise, the aftermath of it. Bobby Schofield is Joe, a man imprisoned for abusing his nephew, Austin Haynes' Tom. Ostracised from the rest of his family at the start of the BBC2 one-off drama, he runs a gauntlet of rage from the other inmates every day every time he steps out onto the prison landing. When Joe's mum dies in the family home after illness, his father, David Threlfall's Brian doesn't want him to...

  STICK, S1 "Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated," Arnold Palmer once mused. "It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening. "And it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented." While devotees of other sports would dispute the last claim from the seven time Major champion, few would quibble with his depiction of the sport. Golf is unique. There are few sports where mere mortals can play on the same hallowed turf as their icons. Golfers can tee off on legendary courses like St Andrews, Valhalla and Royal County Down when they're not hosting big tournaments. Few sports offer spectators too the opportunity to get right up close to their heroes like golf  - particularly when stars like Rory McIlroy, Bryson de Chambeau or Jordan Spieth get a bit errant off the tee. As those who were privileged to attend the Open golf championship last week at Royal Portrush will testify, wh...

HAPPY GILMORE 2 Twenty nine years after he first appeared in Dennis Dugan's original film, Adam Sandler's pro golfer Happy Gilmore is back on our screens. 'Happy Gilmore 2' sees Sandler return as the ice hockey fanatic turned unconventional golf pro in Kyle Newacheck's Netflix sequel. But does the comedy written by Sandler and Tim Herlihy justify a second outing? The first 'Happy Gilmore' film was a modest comedy hit that developed a cult status when top golf pros started to champion it and even mimic the character's eccentric ice hockey slapshot swing. Newacheck's star studded sequel, however, finds Happy on a downswing after his hugely successful golf career comes to a screeching halt on Mother's Day. Unleashing another one of his trademark monster drives, he accidentally kills the love of his life and mother of his five children, Julie Bowen's Virginia Venit Gilmore in a tournamebt. Tormented by her death, Happy gives up golf, loses the f...

  HAPPY GILMORE If you Google search 'Happy Gilmore,' one of the first questions that appears is: what's the point of 'Happy Gilmore'? It's a good question. Watching it 29 years on from it's original release, I'm not quite sure. Yes, it's supposed to be a comedy vehicle for  'Saturday Night Live' alum Adam Sandler . But watching it in the UK and Ireland on Netflix ahead of its  hugely hyped sequel  on the streaming service, it feels hugely overrated. Sandler is, of course, Happy Gilmore, a working class lad who aspires to be a NHL hockey player whose love of the game was instilled by his father. Unfortunately, his dad, played by Louis  O'Donoghue, dies when Happy is a kid in a freak spectator accident at a hockey game and he is sent to live with his grandma. Fortunately, Frances Bay's Grandma Gilmore is a lovely woman, greeting his younger self, played by Donnie MacMillan, dressed like  Gene Simmons from Kiss. In adulthood, Happy stru...