Lord of the Rings

Will you be able to get through the ponderous aphorisms without giggling? The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reviewed

10 September 2022 9:00 am

Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…

The sad decline of my one-time favourites

25 June 2022 9:00 am

I don’t think it’s my imagination: it really is getting harder and harder to find anything worth watching on TV.…

A dog’s breakfast but I’m rather enjoying it: Sky Atlantic's Yellowjackets reviewed

22 January 2022 9:00 am

It has taken me a while to watch Yellowjacketsbecause I found the premise so offputting: in 1996 a plane carrying…

Can Deborah Ross finish her Tolkien review before it fades from memory?

4 May 2019 9:00 am

Tolkien is a biopic covering the early life of J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) and it is not especially memorable. I’m…

A new exhibition gives us the real Tolkien – not his awful legacy

7 July 2018 9:00 am

To no one’s surprise, the Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian in Oxford, where J.R.R. spent so much…

Illustration by Arthur Rackham for Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle

Do myths and folklore damage children’s brains?

4 June 2016 9:00 am

Children’s fantasy literature has never been just one thing. Animal fables, folk and fairy tales were not originally intended for…