Press clippings Page 4

Black Mirror: White Christmas review

Sentimentality offset with wicked wit. Charlie Brooker repeats Black Mirror trick, with feature-length festive special starring Rafe Spall and Mad Men's Jon Hamm.

The Guardian, 12th December 2014

Black Mirror Xmas Special: new plot details & pictures

The new episode of Charlie Brooker's satire stars Jon Hamm, Rafe Spall and Oona Chaplin and tells a chilling story about "blocking" people in real life - just as we do on Facebook and Twitter.

Ben Dowell, Radio Times, 24th November 2014

Rafe Spall interview

Get Santa star Rafe Spall on working with children and reindeer, and his famous father.

Steven MacKenzie, The Big Issue, 22nd November 2014

Cast revealed for Black Mirror Christmas special

Jon Hamm, Rafe Spall and Oona Chaplin are confirmed to co-star in the Black Mirror feature-length special due on Channel 4 this Christmas.

Channel 4, 29th September 2014

Marriage is hell, divorce is heaven and breakdown is a purgatory in between. I Give It A Year, a London-set comedy, is as patchy as a troubled marriage, glum one moment and hysterical the next. Judged by the press show, it sorts those recognising and responding to its take on matrimony from those not. Silence in row A, happy uproar in row B, nervous giggles in row C ...

I loved Stephen Merchant's tactless, blue-joking wedding speaker who sends the party's cringe thermometer through the roof. Rafe Spall (boorishly extrovert while simultaneously little-boy-lost) and Rose Byrne (vulnerably sophisticated) are a match made in the world's worst match factory, crafted to strike a brief, flaring light, then sputter and fizzle. Anna Faris, sweet and pretty-plain, and Simon Baker, a smoothie made from forbidden fruits, are the interloper tempters.

There is a very funny malfunctioning threesome scene, illustrating the asymmetrical warfare of the DIY mini-orgy. (One person always gets dumped on the bedroom floor.) And writer-director Dan Mazer (Borat, Brüno) has an unsparing skill at pushing comic situations to the pain barrier and beyond. These include a relationship counsellor (Olivia Colman) whose own relationship, judged by her off-office screams down a phone line, needs all the counselling it can get.

Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times, 7th February 2013

Review: I Give it a Year

Abysmal, humourless newlyweds comedy starring Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall and Anna Faris.

Hannah McGill, The List, 4th February 2013

Rafe Spall: from fat to fit

Once the go-to man for feckless losers, Rafe Spall reveals how losing five stone transformed him into a romantic lead in I Give It A Year and turned his career around.

Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, 19th January 2013

Pete Versus Life unlikely to return, say reports

Rafe Spall sitcom Pete Versus Life is unlikely to return to Channel 4, according to reports in Broadcast.

Such Small Portions, 12th January 2012

The second season of Pete's ongoing grudge match with life ends tonight as he has a close encounter with a girl who passionately believes in aliens and UFOs.

Tilly (Georgia Maguire) is bonkers, obviously, but could actually be Pete's perfect girl - one who's almost gullible enough to believe some of his lies.

But Pete has other plans as he finds out his old flame Chloe has started seeing his arch-nemesis Jake.

Commentators Colin and Terry have been on a course about how women are people too. Not so you'd notice though.

And while no animals were harmed in the making of this episode for a change, a 12-year-old footballer ends up in traction.

So has the show got legs for a third series? Thanks to the likeable Rafe Spall, and Colin and Terry's crass brilliance, we hope so.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 9th December 2011

With the possible exception of Tom Hollander and his Rev cohorts, there isn't a better comic performer on TV right now than Rafe Spall. He makes magic with fairly ordinary scripts, adding his own tics, double- takes and whimpers (I LOVE Pete's whimpers) and his very own brand of appealing hopelessness.

So it's a pity this is the last in the current series, though it goes out on a great final two minutes as Pete implodes when witnessing a marriage proposal. This is after he goes out with a half-witted UFO believer called Tilly. And after he goads then picks a fight with a street performer who pretends to be a robot. I'm going to miss you, Pete. You prize berk.

Alison Graham, Radio Times, 9th December 2011

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