Like Black Rod and the Poet Laureate, screenwriter Andrew Davies occupies one of the most colourful and arcane offices in public life. He is Pornographer-in-Chief, a title that was first bestowed by the journalist Paul Johnson on the boss of Channel 4, Sir Michael Grade. Davies has assumed the mantle by virtue (or vice) of
The other evening, surrounded by Christmas shoppers in the West End of London, I happened to glance up at the illuminations and was moved all over again by the old, old story. Yes, the sign was lit up once more over the defunct Raymond Revuebar, all that’s left of the club where men and women
It’s one thing to make the most boring film in cinema history — at least you can kid yourself at the outset that it might turn out differently. It’s quite another to lovingly recreate the same film half a century later, shot by eye-bleeding shot, but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, I’m proud to
