Whoever wrote the Odyssey, they were not creating a work of history. There may be historical elements, memories embedded in the stories, but this is not a deliberate attempt to recapture the lived experience of the past. The Odyssey is part of the transition from a predominantly oral society to one where text dominates… The… Read More »
In the UK, at least, TV coverage of India tends to be dominated by two tropes. First, there is celebrity tourism, focusing on the scenic and the exotic, interspersed by carefully choreographed interviews with colourful locals. Second, is poverty tourism, where a commentator with a social conscience on their sleeve picks their way through some… Read More »
Christopher Nolan’s film about J Robert Oppenheimer makes for a long evening and requires serious concentration. Cillian Murphy’s performance in the central role is an extraordinary representation of a man tormented by many demons even before his role in the atomic bomb programme… Such a richly textured film also has footnotes that are worth a… Read More »
If you missed the broadcast of the new BBC/FX version of A Christmas Carol, it is well worth tracking down on a streaming service. While the production is occasionally bonkers, it brilliantly captures Charles Dickens’s passionate anger about social injustice in Victorian Britain. This is not a cosy story of a mean old man chivvied… Read More »