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The Ipcress File/Episode 2

My review comment on the first episode to the effect that the shadow of Michael Caine fell over the production was generally followed by the newspaper critics on Monday, but over the weekend the younger TV critics like Ben Rifkind in the Saturday Times and Deborah Ross in the Mail on Sunday praised [...]

March 14, 2022 // 0 Comments

A visit to the Courtauld

Yesterday I made my second visit to the refurbished Courtauld Gallery at a cost of £57m as part of our art course. We started on the first floor – the Medieval period and early Renaissance . I’m not that moved by medieval art but our excellent tutor did explain its significance and [...]

March 11, 2022 // 0 Comments

The Ipcress File/ITV

Michael Caine’s first starring role was as an effete officer Granville Broomhead in Zulu but after that he played a series of leading cockney roles – Alfie, The Italian Job , The Ipcress File – which launched his successful career. With young northern film actors like Albert [...]

March 7, 2022 // 0 Comments

The Duke (2020)

The Duke is a quintessentially English movie with its roots in the Ealing comedies of the 50s and the northern grit films of the early 60s. Ealing Comedies like The Lavender Hill Mob and League of Gentlemen were caper movies pricking the pomposity of the Establishment. The Duke was slightly [...]

March 4, 2022 // 0 Comments

American and British art of the twentieth century

In our art course these past few weeks we have been considering American and British art of the twentieth century. American art before the twentieth century was colonial art depicting the West. America’s emergence artistically in the first half of the twentieth century owed much to the camera. [...]

March 3, 2022 // 0 Comments

Coverage of war over the years

I used to enjoy discussing with my late father how World War Two was covered. His father would go to the cinema twice weekly for Pathe News so the newsreel and the commentary of Bob Danvers Walker were vital. Winston Churchill would deliver his radio message in that re-assuring resonant voice [...]

March 3, 2022 // 0 Comments

Rise of the Nazis/BBC 4

Last night I watched the third and final part of the series Rise of the Nazis.    I was unimpressed. I watched years ago – and still have the box set – of The World at War and this programme falls way short of that. That series, narrated by Lawrence Olivier, called upon living [...]

March 1, 2022 // 0 Comments

Ukraine war: a heavyweight Brit broadcaster weighs in

Since the rogue President Putin ordered his armed forces to invade the Ukraine last week our television screens, radio airwaves, newspaper websites and social media outlets have been filled with wall-to-wall coverage of its progress and the reactions of governments and peoples around the world. [...]

February 27, 2022 // 0 Comments

Kiss Myself Goodbye/Ferdinand Mount

This is the story of the aunt of Ferdinand Mount who was the former editor of the Times Literary Review and advisor of Mrs. Thatcher. He called her Aunt Munca but she gave herself many names in her life journey from childhood in a poor part of Sheffield to a suite in Claridges and a house in [...]

February 25, 2022 // 0 Comments

Prague Fatale (Philip Kerr) and Berlin Nightfall (Jack Grimwood)

It is the best testimony to the writing of Philip Kerr that after reading a few chapters of Prague Fatale I realised I have already read it. I was sufficiently engaged and engrossed to continue to its end. It’s set in the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia when Reinhard Heydrich, the ruthless [...]

February 23, 2022 // 0 Comments

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