Culture

In this end-of-year episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson discusses the abuse scandals that have forced the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to resign his post, his predecessor Lord Carey to resign his ministry as a priest, and now threaten the survival of the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cotterill.  These developments are an unprecedented disaster for the Church of England – but how many Roman Catholics realise that Pope Francis would also be facing demands for his resignation if the details of various horrifying scandals were not being allegedly concealed by the Vatican and its media allies? 

On this week’s 2024 Out Loud: Cindy Yu examined Chinese work ethic (1:13); Michael Simmons declared his love of the doner kebab (6:28); Angus Colwell reported from Israel in July (9:27); Igor Toronyi-Lalic explained the inspiration behind the cinema of Marguerite Duras (14:41); Mary Wakefield analysed the disturbing truth of the Pelicot case (20:38); Fraser Nelson signed off as editor of The Spectator (27:01); and Michael Gove revealed his thoughts as he sat down at the editor’s desk (33:15).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Which 20th-century Scrooge had the following to say about the celebration of Christmas?  ‘It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure… Anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It’s almost blackmail… Can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers?’ Step forward C.S. Lewis, beloved Christian apologist and children’s author, whose splenetic denunciation of ‘the whole dreary business’ of Christmas and mean-spirited comments about carol singers are hard to reconcile with his reputation for benevolence. To make sense of the author’s views, Damian Thompson is

On this week’s Christmas Out Loud – part two: Andrew Watts goes to santa school (1:11); Marcus Walker reads his priest’s notebook (7:20); Ali Kefford spends Christmas on patrol with submariners (12:34); Roger Lewis says good riddance to 2024, voiced by the actor Robert Bathurst (20:57); Ayaan Hirsh Ali argues that there is a Christian revival under way (32:41); and Christopher Howse reveals the weirdness behind Christmas carols (38:34).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Dame Maureen Lipman has been a fixture of stage and screen for over five decades. She has been a member of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre company and the Royal Shakespeare Company; she is well known for her roles in acclaimed films like Educating Rita and The Pianist; and most recently she has had an award-winning run in soap Coronation Street. For a generation she will always be ‘Beattie’: the grandmother from the BT adverts. On the podcast, Maureen talks to Katy Balls about her journey from ‘the cobbler of Kazimierz Dolny to the cobbles of Corrie’. They discuss selling comedy as a commodity, whether you can separate art from the

Thousands of Brits will be attending Christmas and carol services throughout December. Yet festive attendance masks the reality that church congregations just aren’t holding up. The most optimistic of estimates suggest that regular church attendance has almost halved in the UK since 2009. This is just one of the factors that has led the historian and writer A.N. Wilson, in the Christmas edition of The Spectator this week, to declare that the end of Christendom is nigh. On this episode of Holy Smoke, A.N. Wilson joins Damian Thompson to discuss his thesis. Like Platonism, is Christianity doomed to become extinct in practice? When was the last time England was truly, and fervently,

As we approach the end of a uniquely painful year for the Royal Family, the King’s trusted biographer, Robert Hardman, joins Damian Thompson to discuss the Monarch’s faith. As Robert recently revealed in his updated biography of Charles III, the cancer-stricken King has been drawing solace from a Christian faith that has become increasingly explicit over the years. He still thinks of himself as the ‘defender of faith’, but now also unapologetically uses his ancient title of ‘Defender of the Faith’, meaning Christianity. Specifically, he is more attracted than ever to the traditions of the Orthodox Church into which his father was baptised.  But, as Robert has revealed, the current Prince of

After mounting pressure, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has resigned. His resignation comes days after a damning report into the child abuser John Smyth who was associated with the Church of England. Welby was apparently made aware of the allegations in 2013, yet Smyth died in 2018 before facing any justice. Since the report was published, Welby and the Church have faced questions about the failure to act and the lack of urgency. The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove joins Damian Thompson to discuss what Damian calls ‘not just a shocking moment in the history of the Church of England, but in the history of English Christianity’.   Produced by