Film

Of those caught up in the 1963 Profumo affair, the only winner seems to have been that blithe spirit Mandy Rice-Davies. Everyone else lost. Profumo’s family bore the brunt, of course, especially his son David, archetype of the boy sent crying home from school, who wrote a brilliant book about it, Bringing the House Down (2006). Harold Macmillan and the Conservative party were driven from office. Yevgeny Ivanov was recalled to Russia. Stephen Ward was hounded to death. And poor Christine Keeler… In that mesmerising scene in the film Scandal (1989), where Mandy (played by Bridget Fonda) and Christine (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, as she then was) are getting dressed, to the

I think it was a Frenchman — it usually is — who observed that the English love their animals more than their children. At first glance, General Jack Seely’s Warrior: The Amazing Story of a Real War Horse — originally published as My Horse Warrior in 1934 — is striking proof of this. In an entire book devoted to the exploits of his horse, the author’s final mention of his son Frank is stunning in its brevity: We had a last gallop together along the sands, Warrior and [Frank’s charger] Akbar racing each other; then I drove him in a motor-car to rejoin his regiment .… He asked me to

I only ever heard my mother admit twice to fancying other men. One, remarkably, was Saddam Hussein, the other was Richard Burton, and of each she said, ‘He’s a good-looking old man.’ She said this the way only a Welsh Baptist matron could: grimly, and because she was secure in the knowledge that she was not likely to meet either in chapel or on the streets of Carmarthen. Richard Burton, once of Port Talbot, later of the Dorchester Hotel, was cat-nip to women. He had a face ravaged by acne and his feet smelt, but he managed to sleep with the most beautiful leading ladies of his time, something his

‘Nothing succeeds like excess,’ quipped Oscar Wilde, and Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Aida at La Scala, Milan in 2006 bears him out: for sheer jaw-dropping, applause- garnering theatrical bling, I have never seen anything like it and I doubt I ever will. ‘Nothing succeeds like excess,’ quipped Oscar Wilde, and Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Aida at La Scala, Milan in 2006 bears him out: for sheer jaw-dropping, applause- garnering theatrical bling, I have never seen anything like it and I doubt I ever will. People talk of empty spectacle, but this was full, full to the brim, exploding with colour, glittering with gilt, and jam-packed with near-naked extras. Astonishingly, it

Flesh. Lots of flesh. That was the simple promise of a Hammer horror film. In this collection of classic Hammer posters (The Art of Hammer by Marcus Hearn, Titan, £24.99) we have cleavages, writhing torsos and shining thighs aplenty. But it’s not just that kind of flesh. Over most of our female subjects leers a monster (usually played by the magisterial Christopher Lee), threatening to butcher their curves and leave behind a carcass. Little wonder that the blood-red acrylic is applied so liberally. More interesting, although generally less striking, are the posters that don’t follow the formula. The horribly sensationalist advert for The Camp on Blood Island (1958) carries the