“Will you stop talking about the war!”
Are we watching a Stalinist show trial, with hitherto dissident figures loudly recanting any support for past regimes?
What the Dickens: how has Charles Dickens escaped liberal censure?
150 years since Dickens’s death, Alexander Larman evaluates the memorialised writer’s questionable politics
The geek shall inherit the earth
How a studio was bullied into releasing the first cut of an unsuccessful film
Why does The Shining still scare us?
A large part of its appeal revolves around a simple fact, it is utterly terrifying
It ran in the family
Alexander Larman reviews Fall of the House of Byron, by Emily Brand
‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ at 40: A book that can change your life
Alexander Larman recalls the glee and disbelief at one of literature’s most beguilingly horrible figures
Can Christopher Nolan save the cinema-going experience?
It is not just Nolan’s reputation that is on the line if Tenet is released in July
Can theatres survive the crisis? And should they?
How can theatres come out of this, asks Alexander Larman
Abnormal People
The TV adaptation that reflects the falsity of campus novels
A Radical Proposal: Book reviews should review books
Give us more judgement, more opinions and more criticism
In Defence of Neil Ferguson
Simon Anthony responds to Toby Young’s and Ben Lewis’s criticism of Neil Ferguson
Judging the judges
The way forward is clear: we need another Constitutional Reform Act, writes Joshua Rozenberg
Chronicles of an epic egomaniac
Tackling Harold Bloom
High Drama on the Podium
Norman Lebrecht on the late, great Mariss Jansons who died on December 1st
Return of the dragon
China’s Covid belligerence will only isolate it further
Criticising the critic
Criticism is a valuable art but it should never end up as a tool for bullying