Culture

a review of the book 'Stolen Focus' by Johann Hari

If Thomas Hardy had blessed his female characters with more than an “ephemeral precious essence of youth,” perhaps he would have produced something along the lines of Dorothy McDowell’s Casterbridge, an adaptation of Hardy’s 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.

"Against the backdrop of Majek’s enigmatic blue-toned figures, Spencer, with the help of a multi-roling, all-Black voice cast playing a broad spectrum of characters, reveals tantalising glimpses of these figures’ lives."

"It’s a bit of a mad play, and a lot of quite mad things happen, because that’s what happens when you translate Victorian characters into the modern era."

"The performers [...] delivered a cohesive, entertaining and – dare I say it – heart-warming musical which was received with barrels of laughter."

"From the play’s beginning, this immensely talented cast of Oxford students captured my imagination, and I was swept up by the story they had to tell."

Where do we come from? I mean, where does it all come from, all this? – the books that we read or skim; the...

What links the superhero show Peacemaker with the work of 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?

Life, death, and birth are all present in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers. Both films address, in different ways, what the meaning of motherhood is.

But it’s not good enough to leave it to often privileged tutors, canon-compilers and Education Secretaries to dictate which texts we study. Time and time again, they have failed to achieve even the remotest degree of representation, a damning outcome in a subject which is so linked to identity and the self. The texts we study at school and beyond should be chosen and shaped by the diverse populations reading them.

"We’re left with a simple truth: not everything has a deeper answer, and perhaps we shouldn’t be looking for one."

We know that we ought to validate and cherish visible difference. Why is cinema struggling so much to catch on?

It’s no wonder that sequels have a, let’s say, less than stellar reputation when films like Grown Ups 2 exist.

"This was the second of three successive sold-out nights for the four-piece at the London venue, and it proved one for us and the remaining five thousand people in attendance to remember."

I think there’s just something special about holding a book in your hands, something unique and timeless that isn’t replicated in a e-book.

"SOHPIE’s tragically early passing froze music in time. What stands, crowned by Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, is an impressive but truncated body of work. While we lament SOPHIE’s untimely death, we can also enjoy the music and celebrate the legacy left behind. SOPHIE continues to inspire – both as a person and as a musician – and stands as someone we all can look up to."

Dorothy Scarborough delves into the tangled history and complicated present of the beloved genre.

"Surrounded by the pressure to be beautiful, to craft a beautiful life, and to appreciate beauty, is it any wonder that Kathy goes a bit crazy? She Felt Fear is a portrait of hysteria in the twenty-first century."

"A group as sartorially orientated as one named ‘The Oxford Fashion Society’ inevitably attracts those who care about what they wear. Fastidiously dressed, upright, serious-faced characters come in and sit down quickly. Tote bags are removed from shoulders. Sauntering in alongside, generally attired with less panache, are members of the photography society."

Marvel’s Eternals, the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was released to somewhat middling critical reception, despite largely positive audience scores. I think it’s a brilliant film, despite the considerable body of opinion that stands in vehement disagreement.