March 4, 2021 She Come By It Natural by Sarah Smarsh Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies Forty years ago I spent some time on the motel strip at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to do some hiking…
December 3, 2020 It’s the End of the World by Adam Roberts Reviewed by Annabel I learned a new word this year. ‘Eschatology’ is defined as ‘the part of theology concerned with death, judgement, and the…
October 20, 2020 The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes, edited by Gyles Brandreth Reviewed by Harriet This, obviously, is a book for those who like a good theatrical anecdote. I certainly do, and have been privy to…
February 13, 2020 Veronica by Veronica Lake Reviewed by Harriet I wonder how many people today have even heard of Veronica Lake. There was a time, though a relatively brief one,…
October 29, 2019 Home Work by Julie Andrews with Emma Walton Hamilton Review by Annabel Julie Andrews’s first volume of memoir, Home, told us of her childhood, growing up during the war, and…
April 30, 2019 The Kindness of Strangers by Salka Viertel Reviewed by Lizzy Siddal There are times when an autobiography by someone you’ve never heard of just slots into your current reading stream. Such…
January 17, 2019 Dramatic Exchanges, selected & edited by Daniel Rosenthal Reviewed by Harriet When we think of London’s National Theatre, most of us will envisage the great concrete complex on the South Bank of…
November 13, 2018 ‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy’: On Where Eagles Dare by Geoff Dyer Reviewed by Annabel Being a child of the ’60s and ’70s, I grew up with thrillers. We read loads of them: my father still…
October 18, 2018 Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography by Eric Idle Reviewed by Annabel Eric Idle is perhaps the most elusive of the Pythons. He’s the one who wrote on his own, the one whose…
October 11, 2018 Performing Hamlet by Jonathan Croall Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2015 I wrote a review for Shiny of Jonathan Croall’s Performing King Lear, a wonderfully well-researched survey of performances…
September 13, 2018 Apprenticeship by Peter Gill Reviewed by Harriet Born in Cardiff in 1939, Peter Gill is a distinguished theatre director and playwright. But he started his career as an…
July 26, 2018 Room to Dream by Kristine McKenna and David Lynch Reviewed by Harriet David Lynch’s films are certainly not for everybody. Almost all of them are strange, dark, and increasingly hard to pin down…
January 23, 2018 Unaccompanied Minor by Alexander Newley Review by Annabel The children of celebrity couples inevitably have a hard time growing up, especially when their parents split. You need only think…
July 21, 2017 Excessively Diverted: Austen Books into Movies By Diana Cheng To wrap up a week of Jane Austen celebration, here’s an annotated list of adaptations of her works on both the…
June 15, 2017 No Cunning Plan: My Story by Tony Robinson Review by Laura Marriott Like many people I first came to know Tony Robinson through his role as Baldrick on Blackadder, before following him…
May 2, 2017 Hamlet: Globe to Globe by Dominic Dromgoole Reviewed by Harriet Dominic Dromgoole was the Artistic Director of London’s Globe Theatre from 2005 to 2016. During this successful period he initiated many…
March 16, 2017 Hit Makers by Derek Thompson Review by Annabel I came to read this book immediately after devouring UK journalist and presenter Tim Harford’s recent Messy: How to Be Creative…
October 27, 2016 Loose Canon: the extraordinary songs of Clive James and Pete Atkin by Ian Shircore Review by Rob Spence It’s now over forty years since I discovered the songs of Pete Atkin and Clive James. In a wonderful series…
October 20, 2016 The Age of Bowie by Paul Morley Reviewed by Annabel When the world woke up on January 10th to hear that David Bowie had died just two days after Blackstar was…
January 12, 2016 Performing King Lear by Jonathan Croall Reviewed by Harriet The role of King Lear is seen today as the ultimate challenge for the classical actor, the one that provides the…
October 14, 2015 The 101 Greatest Plays from Antiquity to the Present, by Michael Billington Reviewed by Harriet As the longest-serving British theatre critic, a biographer, and a teacher and lecturer at several world-class universities, Michael Billington has some…
July 28, 2015 Alfred Hitchcock by Peter Ackroyd Reviewed by Victoria Rear Window is my all-time favourite film and I must have watched it a dozen times or more. I never seem to…
April 17, 2015 Naked at the Albert Hall by Tracey Thorn Reviewed by Annabel After the success of her memoir Bedsit Disco Queen (which I reviewed here) in which she told us how she joined…
April 16, 2015 Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris Reviewed by Victoria In this outstanding work of cinema history, Mark Harris follows the fortunes of five big name Hollywood directors who enlisted in…
April 16, 2015 Memoirs of a Professional Cad by George Sanders Reviewed by Lyn Baines In an Afterword to this new edition of George Sanders’ memoir, his niece, Ulla Watson, describes him as the opposite…
