The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
When I was a student of history, the first book we were asked to read was E.H. Carr’s What Is History? I never understood Carr’s question. Or the answers that his book gave. If history is not about people and events, but causes and ideas, then I could see no sense in bothering to study
At the debate on parliamentary democracy recorded last week in Portcullis House for The Forum (broadcast on Sunday on the World Service) as part of Parliament Week, we in the audience were asked whether we thought democratic values were universal or whether they applied differently in different places. Most people voted for them being universal
What’s the best way for a dictator to fall, wondered Owen Bennett-Jones on Saturday night’s Archive on 4 (Radio 4, produced by Simon Watts). Is sending the deposed dictator into exile better for the recovery of the abused nation than execution? Would a domestic trial lead more quickly to justice than an international tribunal? These
The Australians do suburbia well. We seem to be interested in the working classes and the poor (EastEnders, Coronation Street, searing one-off dramas about sink estates), Americans like the rich (Dallas, Dynasty) and well-to-do urban folk (Frasier, Friends). But in Oz they are fascinated by the people who live in medium-size houses in leafy streets
‘We chose to believe things that could not be true,’ says Velma Hart, the American finance officer who famously confronted President Obama at a town hall meeting in Washington DC and told him straight that she was tired of constantly having to defend him against his former supporters among the middle classes. She voted for
Before we knuckle down to the week’s offerings I’m going to seize the opportunity (this review is a one-off, so no need to panic) to champion a regular programme: Something Understood (Radio 4, Sunday mornings at 06:05 and repeated at 23:30). It’s on every week and, while some are better than others, I’ve never heard
Back in the Fifties, it was possible for a single TV sitcom to capture 92 per cent of the small-screen audience; 92 per cent? It sounds astonishing to us now. The idea of so many people watching the very same comic gags at the very same time. Those fabled water-cooler, coffee-machine chats about what was
Sad to say that none of the ex-pats who were interviewed in India for Home from Home (Radio 4, Friday) talked about missing the BBC. Their removal to the subcontinent from the UK might have left them with a longing for a pint of Guinness, but not a word about Jazzer and the Grundys, Nicky
It’s such a relief to come back from a trip to America, to switch on the first available radio and fall into Francine Stock talking about Nicholas Ray on The Film Programme. Americans have lost the radio habit. You won’t find sets in any, let alone every, room in the house. No one I know
Having argued last week that it takes time (maybe a couple of generations) before fiction can be appropriately applied to traumatic historical events along comes a Radio 4 season celebrating the work of the Russian writer and ‘heroic war journalist’ Vasily Grossman, who wasted no time in translating his bitter experiences into a series of
Dr Johnson would be thrilled. His name up there in lights in the West End. He craved theatrical fame, and was cruelly disappointed that his only play, an exotic tragedy set in Constantinople, had just nine performances in 1749. But here at the Arts Theatre on Great Newport Street (London WC2, until 24 September) he
‘History is not a dull subject,’ warned Caryl Phillips, the novelist, at the end of his 9/11 Letter. ‘It’s a vital, contested narrative, peopled with witnesses to events which touch both head and heart. It’s the most important school subject because not remembering is the beginning of madness.’ Perhaps he should have said ‘not remembering
‘It makes you happy that something like that exists,’ says Devente, a young beekeeper from Hackney as he emerges from his protective suit in a halo of smoke, having just checked that all is well in the colony. ‘It makes you happy that something like that exists,’ says Devente, a young beekeeper from Hackney as
Two programmes, two very different worlds, and all in the space of a Sunday afternoon. Imogen Stubbs gave us a Radio 4 moment when she used the network to campaign against those personal statement forms which young students have to write as part of their applications to colleges and universities. The instruction booklet (or guidance
Even the great Alan Bennett sounded out of synch with the times as he read from his new short story ‘The Shielding of Mrs Forbes’ for this week’s Book at Bedtime (Radio 4). Even the great Alan Bennett sounded out of synch with the times as he read from his new short story ‘The Shielding
There was a scary moment on last Sunday’s The Reunion when we heard that the derivatives market has ‘exploded’ since the collapse of Barings in 1995. Banking has become more, not less, dependent on the kinds of gambling on future (i.e., virtual) values that brought down Britain’s oldest merchant bank. When Barings fell, just over
It took just ten minutes for the secret of Nadia Comaneci’s extraordinary success at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal to be revealed. Comaneci achieved the first-ever perfect score when she was given a clean sweep of 10s from all the judges for her performance on the uneven bars. ‘What I remember is the dead
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Take Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. She wanted ‘to do something nice for the folks in my home county [Tennessee]. I wasn’t thinking on a larger scale,’ she says. But her idea to send a free book every month to every child enrolled in her scheme from the moment
‘You have to live. ‘You have to live. You have to find a way to live,’ a Japanese woman told the 15 elderly people who were trapped on the third floor of a concrete building in one of the small towns worst affected by the natural disaster in March. She had gathered them together after
Amid all the chattering about hacking it’s a relief to discover that some things don’t change and yet still, surprisingly in these tainted times, proffer sterling quality. Amid all the chattering about hacking it’s a relief to discover that some things don’t change and yet still, surprisingly in these tainted times, proffer sterling quality. Saturday
Is Glastonbury over yet? If not, can it be very soon please? On Jo Whiley’s exciting new evening show on Radio 2, the poor woman can still barely finish a sentence without referring to ‘Glasto’ or ‘the Pyramid Stage’ or whatever it’s called, where everyone who played was brilliant, as everyone always is in Jo’s
My favourite fact of the week is to have discovered that in the UK there are 2,500 species of eyebright, 2,500 different varieties of that dainty, slender-stemmed flower, with its bright white trumpet. It’s so small and yet always stands out, demanding to be noticed. You can tell it’s a plant that’s determined to survive
‘To be speaking to you through the BBC has a very special meaning for me. ‘To be speaking to you through the BBC has a very special meaning for me. It means that once again I am officially a free person,’ says Aung San Suu Kyi at the beginning of the first of her Reith
It’s the small things that drive you mad. It’s the small things that drive you mad. Every so often I start worrying about the big stuff — God, or lung cancer or early-onset Alzheimer’s — but a cigarette and a cup of coffee usually puts me right, even if it makes cancer a little more
All eyes will be on Andy Murray this week and perhaps next, but 50 years ago it was British women tennis players who were on top, with two of them fighting for the trophy in the final at Wimbledon. Christine Truman lost by a narrow margin but only after she fell and hurt her ankle.
It must be a fix, surely? The list of tunes voted online ‘by the nation’ as the eight favourite ‘discs’ we would like to be marooned with on a desert island is the dullest, most unoriginal, least controversial combination we listeners could possibly have come up with. It must be a fix, surely? The list
It’s all in the voice. It’s all in the voice. Whether or not the person speaking is seeking to engage the listener, or just saying what comes into their head without much thought of what they are trying to get across, or of who they are talking to and why they might want to listen.
‘We will know one day why it happened,’ said the mother of Helga Mosey. ‘We will know one day why it happened,’ said the mother of Helga Mosey. Helga was just 19 when she was killed in the bomb that destroyed PanAm flight 103 as it flew over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on the
That interview with Kenneth Clarke, QC, was not so much a disaster for his political career as yet another knockout blow to the possibility of hearing honest answers from leading politicians. Who now will be prepared to go ‘live’ on radio to talk about sensitive policies? I didn’t catch the conversation in real time, when
