At a very jolly ceremony at the Coach and Horses in Soho last night, Adam Mars-Jones won the inaugural Hatchet Job of the Year Award, organised by the review aggregating website The Omnivore. The prize, which rewards the "author of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past twelve months", was judged by the journalists Suzi Feay, Rachel Johnson, Sam Leith and D ... read more
Cultural Capital
Reflections on books and the arts from the New Statesman culture desk
Burying the hatchet
Adam Mars-Jones wins award for the "most trenchant book review of the past twelve months".
Charles Dickens: snapshots of a life
Caricatures, interiors and comb-overs.
Gilbey on Film: We need to talk about Kermit
A triumphant cinematic return for the Muppets.
Aside from nostalgia, the primary responses to the generally encouraging quality of the new Muppets picture have been surprise and relief. But why?No other series with the exception of the Carry On films has maintained a comparably high standard over such a long period of time.
There may have been a slight falling-off in the late 1990s with Muppets from Space, and I can't vouch for the occasional TV films (such ... read more
Dickens at 200
A life in letters.
Today, it is 200 years since Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Landport, Portsea to John and Elizabeth Dickens. The second of their eight children, Charles would go on to become not merely a novelist but the paradigmatic Victorian man of letters - journalist, essayist and prolific correspondent as well as novelistof his day.
As Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author of Becoming Dickens, noted in an essay ... read more
Reviews round-up
The critics’ verdicts on Jon McGregor, Tony Judt and Faramerz Dabhoiwala.
In the Telegraph, Catherine Taylor notes the historically and geographically specific settings of the stories in Jon McGregor's debut collection: "[They are set] mostly around the sparsely populated flatlands of eastern England ... like all his work, precisely of [their] place and time". Taylor admires the specificities of character and situation: ... read more
The Friday Arts Diary
Our cultural picks for the week ahead.
Whitechapel Gallery, London E1, Zarina Bhimji, until 9 MarchLandscapes and buildings and their multi-faceted histories inform British artist Zarina Bhimji's photographs and large-scale film installations. India and East Africa are the key locations for her evocative journey into the archaeology of place. This exhibition surveys 25 years of Bhimji's work, and is organised in collaboration with Kunstmuseum Bern.
ComedySlug ... read more
In the Critics this week
William Trevor on V S Pritchett, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst on Dickens, and David Harsent on insomnia.
The Books Essay in this week's New Statesman is by the novelist William Trevor, who pays tribute to V S Pritchett's mastery of the short story form. Pritchett, Trevor writes, "indelibly left his mark on it". He praises Pritchett's "exploration of the human condition", noting that "the unusual as a human quality appealed to him, as mild eccentricity did".
In Books, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author of Becoming ... read more
Adapt or die
In the battle of the Birdsongs, telly nicks it - just.
Adapt or die, goes the old saying. But in the case of Birdsong maybe it's adapt and die. I've now sat through versions made for the stage (Comedy Theatre) and made for TV (BBC One). In my head this was a Day of Judgement, a Sky Sports Super Sunday. Which one of the two great loves of my life (theatre and telly) would fare the best, or die the least? ... read more
The reinvention of Leonardo da Vinci
Why did the painter flee Florence for Milan?
Leonardo da Vinci's art provokes rapture. His paintings from his time in Milan, currently on show at the National Gallery, are sublime. The exhibition closes next week, so if you have not yet seen it, despite the crowds, queue for a ticket. If you don't, you will miss a truly exquisite and cathartic experience. The exhibition leaves you in no doubt of his absolute genius. ... read more
Gilbey on Film: Truth and lies
Alma Har'el has made the most successful "engineered" documentary yet.
To call Bombay Beach a documentary is only half the story; it's what adorns and nourishes that framework that makes it so beautiful and distinctive. The Israeli filmmaker Alma Har'el spent a year living among the residents of Bombay Beach, a failed and forgotten development (now a "census designated place") on the Salton Sea in Southern California. What began as a "miracle in the desert" ... read more
Reviews round-up
The critics' verdicts on Geoff Dyer, Jodi Kantor and Roberto Bolaño
In the Financial Times, Peter Aspden is initially sparing in his praise, noting that, although Dyer's celebration of Andrei Tarkovsky's fim Stalker is patient and straightforward, "it surely deserves more". Yet that expectation, too, is ultimately fulfilled, says Aspden: "[T]here is deft method in Dyer's fluent playfulness," he concedes, with "each scene in the film . . . scrupulously examined". Aspden is ... read more
Still crazy after all these years
Simon Stephens's new play transports Alfred Jarry to the International Criminal Tribunal.
When a play starts with the act of auto-fellatio, performed by a puppet, you know you're not in Kansas any more. Simon Stephens's The Trial of Ubu, at the Hampstead Theatre, begins with a quick-draw, crude in all ways, précis of Alfred Jarry's 1896 play Ubu Roi. Many of us have a beef with our physics teachers, but as far as I'm aware, Jarry is ... read more
Gilbey on Film: We need to talk about Kermit
I think this is the reason why Mel Brooks' films work too - they are unafraid of being self-referential and relish in making "obvious" jokes; the Spaceballs gag where they fast-forward the video to...
From Scurra, 07 February 19:15
Animation update
I'm Jessica Wainwright who made Betty! Thank you for such lovely words!
From Jessica Wainwright, 06 February 22:40
Huis Clos on Whitehall
An insightful piece which illustrates that Sartre's play is still relevent in today's society.
From Eugene Egan, 05 February 13:57
- RSA Animated lectures – Crisis of Capitalism.
Radical thinker David Harvey on looking beyond capitalism. - Quill & quire
Director Ang Lee to make film version of Yann Martel's Life of Pi - Mark Kemode Uncut (video blog)
The BBC film critic sums up Cannes 2010 - Book Bench (New Yorker)
Oxford University Press launches online bibliographies - South Park Studios
Trey Parker does Salinger and the book trade (Friday 26th on Comedy Central) - Laura Hocking & the Long Goodbye
In London from Leeds, a singer/writer of piquant gifts: try her 'Lola B'
- Green Cine Daily
- Bookslut
- Pierre Assouline
- Ready Steady Blog
- Maud Newton
- The Book Bench (New Yorker)
- The Reading Experience
- The Literary Saloon
- Caleb Crain - Steamboats Are Ruining Everything
- Robert Hanks
- Jude Rogers
- Norman Lebrecht
- Patrick Wright
- Ubuweb
- We Make Money not Art
- Arts and Letters Daily
- Infinite Thought
- Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy
- K-Punk
- Blissblog (Simon Reynolds)
- Bldgblog
- Sasha Frere Jones
- Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise
Enter search term below: Policy | Charity & Fundraising | Research | Education | Executive | Media | Social Care | Communications
Newsletter!
Enter your email address here to receive updates from the team
Can the UK achieve it’s commitment to carbon reduction targets by 2020?

















