Gizza Job. Welcome to the gig economy. The game may have changed but the rules of a capitalist society remain the same: for the powerful to thrive, the working class must be oppressed. Zero hours contracts usually involve working for companies who...
I’ve never felt drawn to the work of Jane Austen (whose modest output totals six novels), for various reasons. Middle class characters who do little except play the harpsichord, and visit other people’s houses, seems a narrow seam to mine. Rom-coms...
Not every popular novel transfers successfully to the stage. If you want proof, check out this touring production from Simon Friend Entertainment and Josh Andrews. The Girl on the Train is a clunky, lukewarm mess – albeit one with...
The Smiths remain one of Manchester’s most beloved bands. The musical alliance between Morrissey and Marr gifted the world a catalogue of melodic pop songs with lyrics which spoke to those on the margins of life: the lonely, depressed and...
In the world of movie directing, there’s the auteur, and there’s the journeyman. The craftsman occupies the middle ground, motivated more by story and character than a need to stamp his personality on the finished product. Sydney Lumet was one of...
You don’t need to have read Fast Food Nation to know modern meat is created in an environment which would fit happily into the pictorial world of Hieronymus Bosch. A fake food advert in Charlie Brooker’s TV Go Home book – for a product named...
In 1948, poet WH Auden wrote an essay outlining the key components of the ideal English detective story. ‘A murder occurs, many are suspected: all but one suspect, who is the murderer, is eliminated: the murderer is arrested.’ Such was the national...
Slapstick comedy has never gone out of fashion; as a genre, it transcends both time and language. It’s why the work of Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin continues to attract new converts. It’s also why the various incarnations of...
Does the world need another version of ‘Frankenstein’? Director James Whale drew up the movie blueprint with his original 1930’s film (and its sequel), a vision so distinctive that few have come close to surpassing it in the decades since. The...
What happened to 3D films? There was a time when nearly every big movie came in two versions. But much in the manner of My Space, 3D disappeared almost overnight; indicative of how dispensable it was in the eyes of film fans (there is still the...
Steve Timms