Undercover heiress: the Chicago meat-packing scion who outfoxed the Gestapo
In 1978 the novelist Mary McCarthy ignited one of the fiercest feuds in literary history by claiming on a TV...
Crisp Culture
‘No one in their right minds would do this’: the married couple shaking up the arthouse – on a single salary
Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor are chatting away over Zoom. The Irish film-makers, who are married, have worked together since...
Indecent proposal: the queer Yiddish play that led to an obscenity trial and a Broadway hit
Books can lurk for decades on a library shelf, hugging their incendiary potential close until the right readers happen along....
Barenaked Ladies: how we made One Week
I joined Reprise Records in 1995, based in New York, and was assigned to help Barenaked Ladies make their fourth...
The best books about the post-human Earth
We humans have a profound impact on the world around us. Bob Paine, the groundbreaking American ecologist, once described us...
Mellow giallo: has the horror genre lost its ability to shock?
Giallo began as the trashiest of genres. Derived from pulp Italian novels (with yellow covers, hence the name), it was...
Dragons and Mythical Beasts review – watch out for the tooth fairy!
Something miraculous is happening. The sun is shining and the kids in the crowd are buzzing on sugar yet, somehow,...
Joan Rivers and Barbra Streisand: the myth of their lesbian play
In the late 1950s, a 25-year-old struggling actor named Joan Molinsky – later to become better known as the acerbic...
Car crash TV: why Simon Cowell’s take on Top Gear is the last thing we need
Simon Cowell and Jeremy Clarkson. Sneery Si and shouty Jezza. Together they bestrode 00s primetime, the dad-jeaned embodiment of a...