Bizarre to think that the West End Theatre currently includes two separate shows about characters who were found in, and are named after, railway stations.

R.I.P Tom Stoppard. The first living playwright I was ever a serious fan of. Loads of masterpieces - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Jumpers, Arcadia - I even enjoyed Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth. Leopoldstadt was a worthy farewell.

I've heard a rumour on LinkedIn that the actor Andrew Jarvis has died. A genuinely amazing man - superb in the ESC's History cycle as Hotspur, Richard III and, in Henry V, the Dauphin against whom all others must be measured. He later became a teacher, notably at Mountview. (1/3)

Well, this is very lovely: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd8t...

Just saw a fellow carrying a Christmas tree.

At Angel station, I pay my money for a poppy, and the woman says 'We've only got paper ones, I'm afraid. Unless you're an Arsenal fan.', indicating a metal badge with a combined Poppy/Gunners device. I say 'No, thanks.', and she replies 'It's funny. No one round here seems to want those.'

David Cottis reviews Half Trick’s 2024 production of Antonio’s Revenge, dir. Courtney Bassett. 🎭: halftrick.com#antonio 📰: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... 📷: Eliza Roberts

This is a rabbit hole well worth falling into. Go down into the replies and up into the quote tweets, and enjoy a fantastic group writing project.

I’ve doubtless posted this before, many times maybe, but it really is an incredible piece of documentary filmmaking, which captures those near-far, fingertip folk histories that feel of our own time & just out of reach yet somehow simultaneously deeply arcane & otherworldly youtu.be/ic4qWguBYEM?...

How to Film a Ghost Story.

Nice anecdote in the BFI's melodrama booklet: when shooting The Whales of August with Lillian Gish and Bette Davis , Lindsay Anderson said at one point 'Miss Gish, you have just given me a perfect close-up!', to which Davis replied 'She should. She invented 'em.'

One of the few Disney animated features to have left practically no cultural footprint: no rides at the Magic Kingdom, no characters or songs that people remember. It's got all the hallmarks of the studio's output at this period: ... (1/3) www.imdb.com/title/tt0057...

Okay, never expected Debbie Harry to sound like Marianne Faithfull... www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAMm...

An outlier within the MCU, in that its mythos and characters are pretty much self-contained (as was the comic, originally - Jack Kirby only brought it into continuity under duress). As such, it suffers from the usual problems of multi-protagonist films... (1/4) www.imdb.com/title/tt9032...

Woman talking angrily on her phone, as she walks through Hendon: 'I said knee-length. Knee. Length. Do you even know what that means?'

It was a real status symbol in my infants' school to have seen this film when it was released in 1969 (this was in the days when we got US blockbusters a year later, in worn-out prints), so I'm glad finally to have joined the cool kids, over half a century later. (1/4) www.imdb.com/title/tt0064...

The number of great ones that we've lost recently (R.I.P. Diane Keaton) makes me think that maybe the real wonder is not that so many are dying, but that so many lived, and in particular lived in that extraordinarily fertile period that was the half-century or so after WW2. (1/2)

A fantastic Performance Reviews section in 43.1, with pieces from @terribourus.bsky.social, @davidcottis.bsky.social, @joestephenson.bsky.social, Justin B. Hopkins, Suzy Lawrence, Scott Shepherd, Katie O'Hare, @hanhbuiwrites.bsky.social, @emmakatwood.bsky.social, Olivia Soileau, and Laurie Maguire.

I've got a review in the current issue of Shakespeare Bulletin: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55715

One of those films that probably more people have read about than actually seen: John Huston's UK-set noir with the weird gimmick that a set of US stars (Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster) play cameos in heavy disguise... (1/3) www.imdb.com/title/tt0057...

Two students, overheard walking past me in a corridor: First: I'm not good at any sport. Second: (in the tone of someone trumping an ace) Yeah, I'm no good at anything.

@secondmentions.bsky.social 'this garish gourd'

R.I.P. John Woodvine - an RSC stalwart when I was a teenager, during that company's imperial period; Banquo to McKellen's Macbeth, Falstaff in Merry Wives, Ralph Nickleby. Less of a film career, but he was perfect in An American Werewolf in London. The definition of an actor with authority.

Not really a film, more a video show, with Sam Costa lying in bed watching mimed performances by various second division '60s singers and bands. Freddie and the Dreamers top the bill, with Freddie Garrity dressed as a court jester, which seems about right. (1/2) www.imdb.com/title/tt0060...

London vignette: a teenager on a Lime bike, in the classic uniform of black jeans, hoodie, and scarf, cycles round and stops in front of me. He holds up his hand for a high-five, which I give him. I hear a couple of young people behind me cheering. I think I might have just won somebody a bet.

I'm not quite sure how I got to the age i am without seeing this, especially given how present Danny Kaye was in the culture when I was growing up, but a recent reading of a biography of Moss Hart, who wrote the screenplay, inspired me to seek it out. (1/3) www.imdb.com/title/tt0044...

Two female students overheard in a corridor: First: Still, people are quite nice to us. Second: Yeah (Pause.). It's quite good being NPCs.

The Cardinal and the Corpse was directed by Chris Petit & features Martin (not Michael) Stone, legend, who once lent me a first edition of Fritz Leiber's Night's Black Agents, at a time when it was impossible to find (I have my own not-a-first copy now thanks to @annodracula.bsky.social)

Great talk at Highgate Cemetery Chapel, by t he ever-impressive Roger Luckhurst launching his new book on Graveyards, talking about the history of London's 'magnificent seven' cemeteries, and the campaigns of the Victorian philanthropist George 'Graveyard' Walker to get them built... I1/2)

A important film in the whole reappraisal of classic British cinema that's been going on lately, partly because of TPTV. An astonishing cast, and a tough, working-class milieu that's rare in the national cinema of the time, giving it a '30s Warner Brothers tone. (1/2) www.imdb.com/title/tt0051...

R.I.P Tony Harrison. So many masterpieces - The Misanthrope, the Oresteia, the Mysteries, Trackers of Oxyrynchus, V.... The later work is less consistent - he should never have started directing his own texts - but there are moments of glory even in a sprawling mess like Fram. A genuine legend.

Strange experience with new students: doing a get-to-know-you know exercise where I divide them into groups using a pack of cards, I discover that some of them don't know what the suits are. Is this a Gen Z thing?

Overheard. Woman sitting behind me in the NT: 'I'm going to see Vera: or the Nihilists at the Brockley Jack. It's by the same guy who wrote Earnest.' Can't help feeling she's going to have a strange evening.

It's a fairly safe rule of politics that anyone` who uses the phrases 'common sense', 'normal people' or 'the real world' has ruled themselves out of being taking seriously.

Angela Carter Alan Moore Iain Sinclair Jonathan Coe Hilary Mantel Tony Harrison

@secondmentions.bsky.social 'the anonymous artist'

for my old-time-radio friends, a recent "Romancing the Gothic" talk was on "Gothic Radio" (i.e. Suspense, Lights Out, Mercury Theatre, and Rod Serling's "The Zero Hour": youtu.be/vvkz7N_sXt8?... @romgothsam.bsky.social

P.P. Arnold at Clerkenwell Festival was terrific: in much better voice than anyone her age has any right to be (she's been performing professionally for sixty years - you work it out), with amazing stories between songs about Mick Jagger, Steve Marriott, the KLF and the Turners, among others. (1/2)

Film critic Penelope Houston wrote that Kneale was the perfect adapter because of his skill at “presenting action against a background that is both carefully realistic and morally charged’. @davidcottis.bsky.social wrote on these adaptations for my academic collection “Nigel Kneale and Horror”!

And while we're on the subject, one of my other books at the NT Bookshop:

R.I.P. Terence Stamp. I saw him onstage once, as Dracula with Edward Gorey designs, but his real home was the screen - great performances in Poor Cow, Theorem, and The Limey. One of the genuine faces of the '60s - hope he and Julie managed to meet at Waterloo Station.

My book at Middlesex University Library:

Screwball comedy about a reporter (Robert Williams) who investigates a scandal of a rich family, falls for the daughter (Jean Harlow), and marries her, leaving his tough-girl colleague (Loretta Young), only to return to her at the end. (1/3) www.imdb.com/title/tt0022...

Just for the historical record - I was at Edinburgh Waverley Station yesterday afternoon, where trains were delayed after a bridge strike and points failure. The longest queue I've ever seen in my life - a multi-racial, multi-class, multi-age mix of Oasis fans, Festival-goers and others -... (1/2)

First thoughts on looking through the Edinburgh Fringe Programme; the trend for confessional one-person shows continues, to the extent that there is a sub-category of shows with titles starting "I... followed by a description of what the author/actor did, lots of shows about neurodiversity... (1/2)

Woman in Norwich, overheard talking to her young teenage son: 'Stop calling me "bro". I'm not your bro, I'm your mother.'

RIP Tom Lehrer, an admirable man in so many respects, but two that are particularly striking: 1) he retired when he felt he was done, and stuck to it, and 2) he put all his work in the public domain a few years ago, so that no estate will profit by it.

Lovely piece. For me, disdaining either Stephen Sondheim or Chet Baker would be a red flag. Also, Li'l Abner is a great score.

Nigel Kneale and Horror analyses Kneale’s horror work on film, radio and television from a range of perspectives, emphasising the role that time plays in Kneale’s horror, and how he connected to wider cultural concerns. Find out more: bit.ly/NigelKnealeH...

I've got a chapter in this.