Gordon Brown always confused academic ability with a duty to govern and then, in turn, confused this duty with entitlement. Matthew d’Ancona examines what lay behind the Prime Minister’s sudden resignation... more
The Martin Amis/Anna Ford exchange about what may or may not have happened 22 years ago over the deathbed of her husband Mark Boxer is a storm in a tea cup... more
Fashion designer Tom Ford’s debut as director in A Single Man is so immaculately stylish that the tragedy that lies at the centre of the story is lost.... more
Mother Courage and her Children is a competent, confident, if ultimately underwhelming reading of one of the trickiest masterpieces of 20th-century theatre... more
Perhaps it was Desperate Housewives, that beacon of modern sexual and social mores, that signalled a shift with its recent flirtation with the idea of bipartisan attraction... more
It was banned in the 1970s for its graphic scenes of incest and real sex, but now controversial Roman epic Caligula is set to go on sale in the high street.... more
From David Cameron to Barack Obama, everyone's using the the new political buzzword. Here a historian asks what it means, and four writers explain how change affects us all
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Writers are getting it in the neck - literally, not figuratively. Over the weekend it emerged the Pride and Prejudice screenwriter Andrew Davies was headbutted and punched while out walking his dog... more
Inspired by correspondence between Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, and Gore Vidal, the great, gay American man of letters, Terre Haute's strange, sad tension is compelling.... more
The theatrical sensation of the Festival, Terre Haute deals with that terrifying contemporary creature, the home-grown terrorist. It is enthralling, tense and highly astute.... more
Sound check: German industrial metal band Rammstein literally play with fire in their live performances - and now they are about to unleash their singeing spectacle on London. Watch out for your eyebrows