Category Archives: Books
Filth, fury and the funny way Britain feels about Joe Orton
You never forget your first time. I was 19 years old. I descended into a dark, cramped basement where student actors brought to life a weird, twisted sexual triangle. Going to student drama productions in odd spaces around the University … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Crime and Justice, Culture, Film, Media, Radio, Theatre, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 60s, crime, culture, dr emma parker, elitism, film, joe orton, john lahr, kenneth halliwell, Kenneth Williams, Leicester, leonie orton, literature, London, prick up your ears, satire, sheila hancock, soft touch arts, tv
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The making of John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls
John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls is a Radio 3 Sunday Feature which airs this Sunday Feb 26th at 645pm Intellectual and art school champion of medieval art he may have been, but it is John Ruskin’s alleged horror of female pubic … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Education, History, Radio
Tagged culture, eurythmics, feminism, John Ruskin, of queens gardens, Queenswood School, sesame and lilies, Victorians
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How to win the coming culture war in 2017
A version of this article first appeared in The Big Issue magazine in January 2017. Journalism worth paying for. Available weekly from street vendors or subscriptions here. History rarely falls into neat numerical decades. I would assert the 1980s (yuppies, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Comics/graphic novels, Culture, Film, Media, Music, Politics, Radio, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Theatre, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged ali smith, BIG ISSUE, books, cinema, culture, culture war, Disney, dr quinn medicine woman, dreamgirls, everbody's talking about jamie, feminism, film, FTW, henry krieger, Hollywood, jane seymour, jon musker, media, moana, pauline boty, politics, rogue one, ron clements, susan faludi, tv, tyrus wong, unforgotten, Wonder Woman
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Adjust your privacy settings now, fool! Reading The Woman In White in the instagram age
(Warning contains some partial but not big spoilers!) “Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that man can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Culture
Tagged front row, instagram, the woman in white, twitter, Victorians, wilkie collins
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Ladybird books: Constructing the future past of modern Britain
I used to visit a beloved university English professor and his wife. He had won the Military Cross for hand to hand combat in the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 but never talked about the terrible things he’d seen. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Design, Environment, Germany, History, Media, Uncategorized, War
Tagged 60s, Bachelor of Hearts, books, conway hall, culture, Hardy Kruger, Ladybird books, media, michael balcon, politics, publishing, Sylvia Syms, war, wolf rilla
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We’ll get the President we deserve: Suzan Lori Parks on Hillary Clinton & America’s woman problem
“You’ve consumed too much of the Kool-Aid that the man has been serving you.” Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Susan Lori Parks came into the Front Row studio last week to talk about When Father Came Home From The Wars opening at … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Culture, History, Media, Politics, Radio, Theatre, Uncategorized, War
Tagged American Civil War, culture, feminism, Hillary Clinton, media, politics, Suzan Lori Parks, Theatre Royal Stratford, US politics, war
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From Jane Eyre to Mary Poppins – de-coding the Brontes on film
I wrote this blogpost for a panel discussion we held with a screening of Jane Eyre (1943) at the Picturehouse Cinema at the National Media Museum in Bradford last Saturday. Novelist Mick Jackson, Bronte Parsonage Museum arts officer Lauren Livesey … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Culture, Film, Media
Tagged Bradford, Brontes, charlotte bronte, jane eyre, joan fontaine, orson welles
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The men are weeping in the Oval Office…
Lucy Dichmont and I have made a Something Understood for Radio 4 about Weeping. I knew I wanted to talk about the Wailing Women in the Bible and especially that I wanted to talk again to award-winning poet Andrew McMillan … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, History, Politics, Radio, Religion
Tagged Alice In Wonderland, Andrew McMillan, Something Understood, The men are weeping, weeping
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The Teen Within…
This week’s Something Understood gives voice to people who I reckon are rarely heard on radio. Teenagers. The readings are all done by young actors and much of the music and poetry you’ll hear was written by them, or about … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, France, Germany, History, Media, Music, Radio, Religion
Tagged adolescence, alom shaha, BIG ISSUE, cat stevens, claude tardat, Hairspray, harlem renaissance, janis ian, john steinbeck, John Waters, letter to my younger self, maxim leo, peter capaldi, plum bun, red love, teenagers, the young atheists handbook
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Marriage, Margaret Thatcher & the closet of female expectations
This article first appeared in The Big Issue. Journalism worth paying for (subscriptions available) For years my mother kept an entire cupboard where she used to save up things for my trousseau; the old fashioned concept of a bride’s personal … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Design, Food/Drink, History, Politics
Tagged BIG ISSUE, feminism, hostess trolley, Margaret Thatcher, trousseau, V&A, Vivienne Durham
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