Reclaiming the temple: Orthorexia and me
Disordered eating is not something I ever thought I might be susceptible to. I upheld misguided, but common, prejudices about eating disorders, especially anorexia, which I associated with teenage girls – provoked by the trends and standards in popular visual culture – attempting to reme
“Stop right now, if you can”: Interview with Clive James
Clive James is an Australian critic, poet, novelist and memoirist, best known for his television reviews and the autobiographical series ‘Unreliable Memoirs’. One of the most distinctive wits of the last century, he once described Barbara Cartland’s heavily-mascaraed eyes as resembling “two
‘Prophesy, Darkness, Play’: An Interview with Max Porter
“A is to B what C is to A plus B less C. Lovely.” This is the family dynamic of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter’s debut novel, a slim book ostensibly about the “grief” of its title. Yet things are not quite as they seem: a dead mum has been replaced by […]
Antigone of Syria
“Our two brothers on a single day, A wretched pair, with hands aimed at each other, Killing themselves, have shared a doom in common. And now we two, the last ones left—consider How much worse death will be for us if we Defy the law and flout the rulers’ vote and power.” This passage could [
Coffee With Michael Frayn
Search long enough and you’ll discover that there exist some neat patches of parkland on YouTube that haven’t been marred by the graffiti of endless Vevo commercials or the dog-shit vitriol of the comments box. One such sequestered glade is the modest archive of seventies BBC documentaries, a tr
One city, one night, one take
Sturla Brandth Grøvlen explains how he filmed 'Victoria' in one shot.
Kashing in on Feminism
“I have a theory,” a friend whispered to me in a conspiratorial tone, “Kim Kardashian is a genius.” This was not the first time I’d heard such an opinion. In recent years, the mainstream media has affected a habit of reducing feminist icon status to the success of rich, conventionally attr
The walking people: an interview with an Irish Traveller
“The government thinks that everybody’s millionaires, like the people over there,” Sarah* tells me. She gestures out of her caravan window in the direction of the Prime Minister’s home constituency, Witney. “David Cameron is living on a high stool just down there. He’s saying he’s help
Madness, violence and so on
An interview with the stage director Robert Icke.