The recent death of Shirley Temple at the age of 85 appears to buck the trend for the tragic child star. In marked contrast to the likes of Judy Garland and Michael Jackson, Temple made the transition…
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The first episode of mini-series Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond is a very glamorised account of the life of James Bond’s creator, and it is certainly entertaining. But should we lament its deviations…
Anniversaries encourage reflection. Now, 100 years after the start of the Great War, anyone who follows current affairs or reads a newspaper is part of a cultural conversation, a widespread reassessment…
The news that the cultural theorist Stuart Hall has died aged 82 will produce much mourning and remembrance across the world. One of Britain’s leading intellectuals, Hall had a huge influence both within…
It seems an impossibility: in Nazi-occupied Denmark in the 1940s, one of the hottest jazz orchestras around was the interracial Harlem Kiddies, with two white and three black band members – and a Jewish…
French comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala has been acquitted over a video in which he called for the release of a man who tortured and murdered a Jew in 2006. The court ruled it could not prove he was behind…
The media frenzy recently aroused by the “racist chair”, as it has been dubbed, took off in a way that could only have been possible in a digital age. Once the infamous photograph – of wealthy gallerist…
Fifty years after the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the band is still the benchmark for Anglo-American relations. With their swift rise to fame in the US, they started the so-called British…
Thirty years ago, a new name joined popular music’s aristocracy with an album and movie that catapulted him, almost overnight, from cult celebrity to the higher tiers of rock’s pantheon. Since then, the…
So J K Rowling is having second thoughts about pairing off Ron and Hermione in Harry Potter. She says that it would never work and she ought to have allowed Hermione to marry Harry, but didn’t as she followed…
This article contains spoilers. In the award-winning movie The Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey plays the role of Ron Woodroof, a real-life Texas cowboy who was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1985…
When William S Burroughs returned to New York City in 1974, after two decades of peripatetic rambling, dubious pleasure and restless escape, the rising rock poet Patti Smith expressed her deep pleasure…
London has 15.4%, one eighth, of the population of England. It is well known that London receives a disproportionate amount of UK arts subsidies, but perhaps not the vast extent of this. Our independently…
Even the briefest glance at recent cinema listings and television schedules suggests that the remake is everywhere. Currently showing in the UK is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, an update of the 1947…
Public relations and arts journalism are inextricable. And so, unlike in other areas of the media, the influence that PR has on the arts sections of newspapers and magazines is not so contentious. But…
I’ve just asked Siri about Her. Two screens of text appear in answer to my query. “Is that all you can find for Her?” I ask. “Let me check on that,” comes the response. More screens of text appear with…
Much has been made about the power of social media to improve democratic participation. But as with medicines and drugs, no heavily used technologies are without their side effects. This is particularly…
Pinning down definitions of the words “culture” and “arts” has always been notoriously difficult. But over the past 60 years, fast and profound social, economic, technological and cultural changes have…
It’s that season, and the award shows have begun, culminating for many in the Oscars. There are, as always, heavy favourites, films nominated numerous times, shows, musicians and actors. But one has to…
In workplaces right now it is increasingly tough to avoid what I call “pathology days” – those working days that are annually hijacked by some insistent PR agency or charity trying to raise awareness of…
In the US, television programmes have traditionally been designed to be aspirational. This is largely due to an advertising model that likes to think of audiences as consumers and sell them the latest…
Technology is under development to enable advertisers to target products not just at a broad group of people that might be watching a certain type of programme but at specific households and even individuals…
In the first few weeks of 2014, private security company G4S has repeatedly had to deny reports of full-scale riots at the UK’s newest prison, HMP Oakwood, near Wolverhampton. The prison has experienced…
It’s a kind of literary miracle. Fragments of two new poems by Ancient Greek poet Sappho have been discovered, making it possible for us to be among the first people to read these texts for more than 1,000…
The death of Pete Seeger marks the end of an astonishing career. His music, political activism and teaching gave him an extraordinary influence that shows no sign of abating. Although the American folk…