Acting
If Annette Bening isn’t Oscar-nominated, I’ll eat my hat and also yours
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is plainly wonderful, and stars Annette Bening, who is plainly wonderful, as Gloria Grahame,…
Moor and more
In 1824 an ambitious teenage actor fled to England from his native New York where he had been beaten up…
Ivory towers
Great novels rarely make great movies, but for half a century one director has been showing all the others how…
Three hours of vomit, fellatio and menstruation: Isabelle Huppert on Phaedra(s)
A blushing James Woodall is riveted by Isabelle Huppert’s performance in Phaedra(s)
‘Wanna come to Prince’s house?’
The untold story
Our Country’s Good prizes the concerns of the actors over the audience
Australia, 1788. A transport ship arrives in Port Jackson (later Sydney harbour) carrying hundreds of convicts and a detachment of…
There's a reason why the past four centuries have ignored Shakespeare's King John
King John arrives at the Globe bent double under the weight of garlands from the London critics. Their jaunt up…
Shakespeare’s stagecraft — and his greatest players
How many books are there about Shakespeare? A study published in the 1970s claimed a figure of 11,000, and today…
Don’t believe Orson Welles, says his biographer Simon Callow — especially when he calls himself a failure
Orson Welles would have been 100 this month. When he died in 1985, aged 70, the wonder was that he…
Antony Sher: a surprisingly reluctant actor
Understandably given its bulk, Antony Sher’s Falstaff in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent production of Shakespeare’s two Henry IV plays…
A misery memoir from Alan Cumming that's surprisingly thoughtful
Misery loves company. Anyone who doubts this old adage should pop into their local bookshop, because besides celebrity chefs and…
From Trot to Thatcher: the life of Kika Markham
In a varied career, the actress Kika Markham has regularly played real-life charcters, including, on television, Mrs Thatcher — piquant…
If you have teenage boys who loathe the very idea of theatre, send them to The Play That Goes Wrong
It’s taken a while but here it is. The Play That Goes Wrong is like Noises Off, but simpler. Michael…
Want a fun job? You just have to pick the right parents
The old paths to the top for working-class children – sport, music, acting, writing – are now closed by nepotism
The summer of love
I spent it skipping about in tights, imagining women wanted me
The talent and tragedy of Richard Pryor
The troubles of Richard Pryor’s life are well known — from his childhood in a brothel to his self-immolation via…
Simon Callow’s notebook: What it’s like to lose at an awards ceremony
It was one of those weeks. On Monday, I was in four countries: I woke up at crack of dawn…
Ian Buruma’s notebook: Teenagers discover Montaigne the blogger
Bard College in upstate New York, where I teach in the spring semester, is an interesting institution, once better known…
Finally, a celebrity memoir worth reading
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
