In film industry terms the summer’s over, and it was another year of disappointments in Hollywood. Only one studio did well; Disney had four of the five biggest hits. What’s noticeable is how super-safe everything became this year. The top five films were ‘The Jungle Book’ (remake of cartoon), ‘Finding Dory’ (kiddie sequel), ‘Zootopia’ […]
There are certain literary traits I don’t much care for; over-earnestness, sentiment, nostalgia and manufactured ‘edge’ being among the worst – TV crime dramas seem to believe that everything should be grim and shouty – Tony Hancock once said ‘You can get away with anything if you keep a straight face’ – but I’ve never […]
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'71,
JG Ballard,
Joe Orton,
Mapp and Lucia,
Michael McDowell,
Miranda Richardson,
Ronald Firbank,
Testament of Youth,
Toby Jones,
tristram shandy,
Victoria Wood
Add it to the list of projects on my horizon… A few years ago I wrote a story in homage to Mervyn Peake’s ‘Gormenghast’ trilogy, and I was so happy with the way it turned out that I wrote a sequel. The pair became known as the ‘Britannica Castle’ stories. They were ludicrously baroque, fanciful, […]
