Next up in these reviews of the year is my year online. Rather than review particular sites or name one as the best, here is a list of some of the sites I discovered and/or enjoyed in 2015 – some new, some not quite so new, all well worth exploring. In alphabetical order… BBC ShakespeareRead More
After television and books, here’s my review of the year in film. As someone who only saw two new films in a cinema this year, it still feels a bit of a cheat to be talking about enjoying film in any other way, but aside from attending a film festival (just the one in 2015)Read More
Next up in this series of reviews of 2015 and those of its cultural treasures that fell my way is reading. I’m always astonished by those sections in ‘quality’ newspapers in which the great, the good, and journalists tell you the best of what they have read during the year. They all seem to haveRead More
It’s that time of the year when you feel compelled to sum up that year. Well, some feel so compelled, and the newspapers and web are full of people’s reviews of 2015 in art, literature, sport, news, whatever. So, setting aside the feeling that years are arbitrary concepts and that the idea of things beginningRead More
As part of my Picturegoing survey of eyewitness accounts of going to see pictures, I have been reproducing what is among the best pieces of sustained writing on the process of cinemagoing, the ‘Continuous Performance’ essays written by Dorothy Richardson for the film journal Close Up. Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957) was a British novelist, a pioneerRead More
I have just finished reading The Speechwriter, by Barton Swaim. It’s an account of the writer’s experience as speechwriter for the Republican politician Mark Sanford, whose presidential ambitions were crushed by revelations of an extramarital affair. Sanford isn’t mentioned by name but is readily identifiable. I found the the book to be an awkward mixtureRead More