As a member of Generation Rent (distinguishing characteristics: no mortgage, no hope but an abundance of cardboard boxes ready for the next time we're turfed out), property shows make me feel like an alien, peering in at a world I can't understand... more
When a gunman beckoned to the children to gather round, they came. He looked like them and he wore the uniform of authority. It is evil's irony to deceive by appearances... more
Producing a British Mad Men was never going to be easy - a bit like doing Welsh flamenco. The Hour, for all its apparent topicality, is just a summer filler... more
A good day to bury bad news? Yesterday, if you could hear anything above the cacophonous humility of the Murdochs, you may have made out the scrape of shovels as councillors, privy lieutenants and deputy commissioners dug a mass grave, marched bad news up to it and booted it in... more
You may not recognise them yet but these young British actors are tipped to become superstars The hotlist has been drawn up by movie industry magazine Screen International- and it includes several Londoners... more
In BBC2's hotly anticipated The Hour she is a TV newswoman carving a career in the sexist Fifties - but before then Romola Garai can be seen at the Royal Court in a new play about porn. Today's sexual politics is all about the bedroom... more
Whether a fan of the Danish cop series, The Killing, or obsessed with Professor Brian Cox on Sunday nights, this season's television tribes
all think their series is the best. Nick Curtis classifies each species... more
Russian playwright Chekhov wrote masterpieces such as Three Sisters in his ‘White Dacha’. Now, however, this unique world heritage site is falling victim to neglect.... more
British period pieces are regularly mocked as pretty pieces of cinema devoid of real bite. But you couldn't call Stephen Poliakoff's first film for more than a decade, Glorious 39, namby-pamby... more
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is a worthy winner of the Booker Prize but qualms have already been raised by some critics over the novel’s disservice to history... more
London Fashion Week: The song Temptation by New Order gave away the inspiration behind the clean, bright, curvy clothes at the super-pretty Luella show... more
Kenneth Branagh is definitely not a magical film-maker and his remake of As You Like It rarely catches fire as one of Shakespeare's most popular plays should.
... more
A postmodern romance, Atonement works best as a riposte to all those films that put high-society women on a pedestal and is one of the finest British films of the year.
... more
Trevor Nunn scores a direct hit with his production of Checkov's The Seagull, which owes much of its devastating impact to Romola Garai who stars as would-be actress Nina.... more
Ian McKellen's performance as King Lear in Trevor Nunn's gaudy production keeps you on the edge of your seat but is rarely moving, says Nicholas de Jongh.... more
One movie has an all-star cast of Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney, Romola Garai and Rufus Sewell.
the other was filmed in Nigeria on a shoestring budget.... more
Amazing Grace may not be an outstanding success, but it is hardly a failure. It gives a good idea of the horrors of the slave trade, and deals with the parliamentary debates without boring.... more
The Brits threaten to clean up at the Oscars - but can our film industry sustain the good form? Charlotte O'Sullivan looks ahead to the movies that could take next year's prizes.... more