Andrew Petrie 
The stamp of quality – Terence Stamp at the BFI
If ever a director’s decision to cast an actor based solely on looks could be excused, it would be Pier Paolo Pasolini’s choice of Terence Stamp for the lead in… Read more
The shock of the old
New Yorker music critic Alex Ross published The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century five years ago, earning himself the Guardian First Book Award and a finalist citation… Read more
London pride
The trend for documentary portraits of individual cities assembled from archive footage continues with Julien Temple’s London: The Modern Babylon, out now on Bfi DVD. Temple was the obvious choice… Read more
24 hours in Tulsa
Oklahoma will always be a red state on the political map, but the colour goes deeper than that. Everything here was red: red earth, red brick, red dust, red rust.… Read more
Critical meltdown
If the River of Music put you in the mood for stimulating sounds on the banks of the Thames, next week’s Meltdown at the Southbank Centre, also part of the… Read more
From our own correspondent
‘Interviewing Afghan warlords is always something of a delicate dance,’ writes roving BBC reporter Nick Bryant in Confessions from Correspondentland (Oneworld, £10.99), and, given that he has also observed the… Read more
The first lady of song
Folk legend Sandy Denny’s eminently coverable songs, direct of melody and opaque of lyric, have scarcely declined in popularity since the singer’s death in 1978 at the age of 31.… Read more
Bad habits
When the late Ken Russell published his autobiography in 1989, he called it A British Picture. That title could just as easily describe The Devils, his 1971 adaptation of Aldous… Read more
A bite of the Apple
For the first time in its 170-year history, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra has a native New Yorker at the helm. Music director Alan Gilbert (above) brings the band to… Read more
Disappearing lords
‘I don’t like him looking daft,’ growls Alastair Campbell to the camera as Bafta-winning documentary film-maker Molly Dineen shadows Tony Blair for the 1997 party election broadcast. The warning is… Read more
Home away from home
‘The first time I was in Australia I got in the taxi and after a bit the driver said, “Yer a Pom, aren’t yer?” so I said yes, how did… Read more
On a slow night
American trio Low are what you get when a band evolves far from the established music scenes of laidback California and buzzing NYC. Fronted by husband and wife Alan Sparhawk… Read more
Religious doubt
No description of Eric Gill is ever without the words ‘devout Catholic’, and Eric Gill: Lust for Letter & Line (British Museum Press, £9.99), while short, provides evidence to both… Read more
Well trained
Behind you, the New York skyline recedes as you plunge into bridge-and-tunnel New Jersey on a three-hour, five-state train journey to the District of Columbia. Of historical interest is that… Read more
A chorus of disapproval
At more than 700 pages including appendices, Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs (Faber & Faber, £17.99) certainly can’t be accused of skimping… Read more
Bipolar exploration
‘I’m not writing songs anymore; they’re writing me.’ Plagued by music in her head that arrived unbidden, drowning out conversation, Kristin Hersh was diagnosed with bipolar disorder just as psychologists… Read more
Those who are about to rock salute you
They’re as international as Qantas, as influential as Sidney Nolan and could give Rupert Murdoch lessons in global market dominance. They’re Australia’s biggest export since Foster’s, and are probably responsible… Read more
The road to ruins
Director Patrick Keiller made his name with London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1997), semi-documentaries recounting the peripatetic investigations into ‘the problem of England’ conducted by the unseen narrator and… Read more
Friends indeed
Jarrow playwright Peter Flannery’s superb television serial Our Friends in the North started life as an RSC production in Stratford in 1982 and has finally been re-released on DVD. The… Read more
Blu-ray earns its stripes
Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts, recently released on Blu-ray disc by the BFI, proves that the high-definition format isn’t just for blockbusters: it could have been invented for… Read more
Latest blogs
- Rupert Murdoch: Cameron’s in trouble – I read it in The Spectator. Fraser Nelson
- Lamont: QE is blowing another bubble. It will soon meet a pin. Norman Lamont
- Can any government really expect to carry out ambitious reform? Isabel Hardman
- Spectator Play: what’s worth watching, listening to or going to this weekend Camilla Swift
- Drummer Lee Rigby Douglas Murray
- Eight Golden Rules for Tragedy Tweeting Freddy Gray
- Government behaving badly over ‘quietly aborted’ lobbying reform Iain Anderson
