Get Santa
By Matt Trueman Pity those parents with inquisitive kids, for they shall be faced with a barrage of whys after the Royal Court’s first ever…
review types
American Rust
By Brenda Stones This debut novel comes loaded with accolades; already the book covers and the author’s websites are stashed with tributes: the next Steinbeck,…
Alien: Covenant
The scariest movie I watched in my childhood was definitely “Alien.” As I grew up, I watched it several more times, and although I still…
In Search of a Masterpiece: An Art Lover’s Guide to Great Britain and Ireland
By Nicky Charlish Books do furnish a room. They also furnish impressions, and not always positive ones. The title of this one summons up the…
Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond the Solar System
By Richard Swan From the time the human species developed eyes, we have stared up at the skies and speculated about the stars and the…
An ‘Oliver!’ for the 21st century
By Matt Trueman Matilda’s got its own Spiderman in the first five minutes: a spoilt brat in crude, homemade fancy dress. The RSC’s homegrown musical…
Weirdo by Cathi Unsworth
By Nicky Charlish Every crime writer sets his or her fictional detective some challenges to face. With this book, she sets herself one, too: how…
From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia, by Pankaj Mishra
By Sam Burt The 21st century will be Asia’s century, but it won’t necessarily be an Asian century; this seems to be the take-home message…
Certified Copy
By Valentine Rossetti Persian director and pioneer of Iranian new wave cinema Abbas Kiarostami graces the silver screen with his oeuvre once more. Not since…
When The People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation
By Luke Gittos The upcoming general election will see the political class fighting for the attention of voters who appear to have given up on…
Angel Time: The Songs Of The Seraphim, by Anne Rice
By Alicia Rudd From its initial façade, the latest novel by international best-selling author Anne Rice carries the attractive promise of being a ‘dark gothic…
And This is True
By Chris Sims ‘Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true,’ writes Proust in Remembrance of Things Past.…
Harlan County, USA
By Dan Schneider Barbara Kopple is one of those filmmakers who can do just about any film well. And so much so that when she…
The Tyranny of Guilt, an Essay on Western Masochism, by Pascal Bruckner
By Tara McCormack The other day on the train, I came across a copy of the Daily Express. It is not a paper I normally…
The Importance of Being Earnest
By Jane Turner The Importance of Being Earnest was the first and is also sadly, the last play to be performed in the basement of…
The Slap
By Mike Jakeman Until the triumphant return of Jonathan Franzen in the autumn, it seemed that Christos Tsiolkas’ novel, The Slap, was a contender for…
Sybil
The subject of mental disorders has long become a niche for all kinds of thriller and horror movies. Roughly 80% of movies dedicated to this…
Haiku Commentary
spring breeze . . . a new nun shivers in the cloister © Marina Balmaceda Paredes We start with a kigo, or seasonal reference. A…
Cure
If you watch movies filmed in different parts of the world, you might notice that each region, be it America, Europe, or Asia, puts its…
Album Review: Blood Like Lemonade from Morcheeba
Morcheeba is one of those bands that does not have to be introduced, but here you go: this British band, founded in a distant 1995…
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