When he was eighteen years of age, John Greening queued at the British Museum to see the 1972 exhibition of relics from the tomb of Tutankhamun. He describes seeing his own youthful, “golden” face reflected in the museum glass cases as his “coming of age exhibition” (“The Treasures of Tutankhamun”). Part of his entrance fee Read More
For Stephen Spielberg, the story of a rampant Republican government wielding its power to silence the free press was simply too prescient to reject; the urgency apparent even during Trump's notorious campaign and before his employment of "alternative facts". A believer in objective truth, Spielberg set to work assembling a cast and crew, creating the film Read More
“Shadowed by her shadow she walks across the carpet.” Elsa Hazeltt’s shadow casts in the wrong direction. She wears secret codes from the Second World War on the bottoms of the shoes she buys on Madison Avenue. She, or her husband, Paul, or both, may or may not be insane. There is a chance that Read More
In her last published novel, The Finishing School, Muriel Spark throws open the doors of College Sunrise, a “mobile” finishing school run by aspiring novelist Rowland Mahler and his wife Nina Parker, near Lausanne in Switzerland. Alongside Nina’s comme il faut etiquette tuition, the young men and women are taught a number of artistic subjects Read More
This new collection of poetry, from Suffolk-based writer Semmens, takes as its title a quote from Joseph Stalin, dated 1938. The Soviet leader’s reflection, and the volume itself, look backwards over the “purges” – the waves of political assassinations and executions that were implemented twenty years after the Russian Revolution. This historical resonances of the Read More
The first thing to mention about Sean Baker’s modern classic The Florida Project is how beautifully understated it is. At no moment does this film feel like it is shoving its contents in your face, desperate to leave a lasting impression. Instead, the performances that capture your attention are at once so subtle, yet Read More
[…] Dear wall, dear gate, dear stile, dear Dutch door, not a cat-flap nor a swinging door but a one-time piñata. […] Entering any body of work via an “Ode to the Hymen” announces, with undeniable chutzpah, that things are about to change; really, there’s no going back. Sharon Olds’ most recent collection Odes Read More
Anyone who has seen The Lobster – which I wholeheartedly recommend you do – will have an inkling of what to expect from Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film. That is if you can imagine the slow, ominous oddity of The Lobster cross-bred with the domestic horror of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. It is a ghastly, grisly, Read More
Written and directed by one of the hottest screenwriters of the past two decades, Molly’s Game is an explosive, fast-paced drama that seeks to uncover the truth about Molly Bloom. The self-styled “Princess of Poker”, Bloom sought to gain vast sums of money by running illegal poker games in L.A and New York, enticing some Read More
As its title suggests, Jacqueline Saphra’s latest collection, All My Mad Mothers, is about women and family. Saphra’s poems examine the multifaceted nature of femininity, individual and universal, moving within, between and beyond the roles designated to women. This applies particularly to familial roles she inhabits – mother, daughter, stepdaughter – but also examined is Read More