Press clippings

Review: Death To 2021, Netflix

Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe end-of-year reports for the BBC were essential viewing. Last year though he did a caustic commentary for Netflix, Death To 2020, without appearing onscreen himself, which didn't quite have the same sardonic sucker punches. Not for English viewers anyway. It seemed to be aimed at an American audience. And now with Death To 2021, there is a further shift.

Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 28th December 2021

Where are the cast of Bridget Jones are now?

It's exactly 20 years since Renée Zellweger burst on to our screens as our favourite chain-smoking, big-knicker-wearing 'thirty-something' singleton in Bridget Jones's Diary. And while film sequels Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason and Bridget Jones's Baby went on to reveal what happened to hapless Bridget and her love interests Mark Darcy, played by Colin Firth, and Daniel Cleaver, played by Hugh Grant, just where are the original blockbuster's cast now?

Miranda Knox, The Sun, 12th April 2021

Hugh Grant keen on Paddington 3 baddie team-up

Hugh Grant envisions a Big Bad team-up between himself and Nicole Kidman in Paddington 3.

Dan Seddon & Laurence Mozafari, Digital Spy, 13th January 2021

Hugh Grant almost played PM in The National Anthem

Hugh Grant, who played the Prime Minister in Love Actually, almost played Black Mirror's Prime Minister who has sex with a pig.

Laurence Mozafari, Digital Spy, 12th January 2021

Many had high hopes when they saw the name Charlie Brooker linked to Netflix and a review of 2020: hopes of a Screenwipe of sorts, with frissons of Black Mirror. What we got in Death To 2020 was what some might call politely a salmagundi; what others might describe rudely as a mess.

One problem was that, for all the talent involved, there was no Charlie Brooker talking us drily through. It was as if a Netflix algorithm had somehow conflated this with the US show Saturday Night Live, which, through repetitively pointing out weekly since 2016 that Donald Trump was thick and nasty, famously brought about his 2018 impeachment and subsequent bell tower death.

Lisa Kudrow, Samuel L Jackson, Hugh Grant - all terrific, given the bad lines they were given. Kudrow's spokesperson was funny the first time she challenged with an airy defiance the existence of recorded facts. By the seventh repetition of exactly the same gag... not so much. How many ways are there to say that Joe Biden is "old", and how screamingly amusing will that saying-so of an established fact ever have been in the first place? After the year we wish never was, the recap we wish never was.

Euan Ferguson, The Observer, 3rd January 2021

Death To 2020 review

Charlie Brooker's year-in-review Netflix special should have been an open goal. Instead, says Ed Cumming, it doesn't know whether it is playing to an American audience or a British one, and pleases neither.

Ed Cumming, The Independent, 2nd January 2021

Death To 2020: mockumentary proves comedy's demise

2020 has been a brutal year, but one that offers huge potential for humor. However, Death To 2020's tepid, establishment-friendly take on the past 12 months feels like the final nail in the coffin of true comedy.

Michael McCaffrey, Russia Today, 29th December 2020

Review: Death To 2020

Once people realise Death To 2020 isn't actually very Black Mirror-esque at all, but rather just a subpar year-in-review show - in the vein of Last Week Tonight only less sharp - I'm not sure why anybody would seek out this special.

Daniel Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter, 27th December 2020

Review: Death To 2020

It fast became a cliché to say that the spiralling dystopia of 2020 was like an out-of-control episode of Black Mirror. So it was probably inevitable that Charlie Brooker would be called upon to offer a satirical summary of the momentously awful 12 months, especially given his track record with the Wipe series for the BBC. The result is a wry, often bleakly amusing look at the year, albeit without the astringent personal bite Brooker normally brings to his year-end round-ups.

Steve Bennett, Chortle, 27th December 2020

Review: Death To 2020

Perhaps it's a case of too many cooks, with eighteen writers listed in the credits, and the desire to reach a much bigger audience given that the likes of Jackson, Jones, Grant and Milioti were all involved, but the satire felt bleakly blunted.

Alex Finch, Comedy To Watch, 27th December 2020