27th July 2015 New York, USA
Family Guy probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the BBC Proms. This annual festival, which started in London on July 17 and runs through to September 12, is the 76-course meal (plus sides) at the heart of the British classical music calendar. Now in its 120th year, it continues […]
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23rd April 2014 New York, USA
His is an amazing name when you think about it. Something tremulous, something virile. Vulnerability and power in tension — or is it harmony? Like his characters, so recognisably real in their complexity, even the playwright’s signature seems to encompass a vision of humanity in all its strengths and failings. “What’s in a name?” Juliet […]
29th March 2014 New York, USA
Today, 29 March, will be a particularly significant wedding anniversary for many couples in years to come. Today, England and Wales join the list of countries that have full marriage equality, and scores of same-sex couples across the country are celebrating their new rights by getting hitched. By request of the Deputy Prime Minister, a […]
11th December 2013 New York, USA
Sometimes it takes seeing your own national customs through the eyes of another to recognise their strangeness. I was honoured to join Mayor Michael A. Nutter of Philadelphia on his trade delegation to London at the start of November, and one night, as we were having dinner at a riverside restaurant, there was a brilliant […]
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28th November 2013 New York, USA
Turkey is a dull meat, and for years I associated its blandness with my general apathy towards Thanksgiving. Granted, it’s a day off, but it is also marks the start of the holiday season in the US with the horrid mayhem of Black Friday. And while it has an edge over Christmas in that you are more […]
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22nd November 2013 New York, USA
This weekend Doctor Who celebrates his fiftieth birthday. “Ha!” cries my nine-year-old self. “Any Whovian can tell you that he’s actually somewhere between 900 and 1200 years old!” Current Who writer-in-chief Steven Moffat maintains that the Doctor probably lies when asked about his age. At any rate, 23 November marks fifty years since the show […]
31st October 2013 New York, USA
New Yorkers have long cultivated a reputation for being nonplussed. We may well see a fistfight on the subway, an inflatable rat in front of a construction site, and an A-list movie star in fewer than five blocks– but we’re not going to let on that we did. Because in a city of 8 million […]
26th July 2013 New York, USA
Exactly a year ago tomorrow, I sat down with my twelve-year-old son in the Olympic Stadium to watch the Opening Ceremony. Extra tickets had become available about a month or so beforehand – they weren’t cheap, but as a Londoner the chance to be there was too good to miss. We’d got there early, long […]
24th June 2013 New York, USA
I was at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, better known as MoMA, immersed in a discussion with a dozen others about what the Ghanaian artist’s piece titled “Bleeding Takari II” was made from and what it was meant to represent. I felt like I had an upper hand on the rest of the group […]
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11th June 2013 New York, USA
There’s a long and glittering history of traffic between the West End and Broadway. In a recent lavish exchange of gifts, London finally got The Book of Mormon and New York was introduced to the delights of Matilda the Musical, which promptly snaffled five Tony Awards from 13 nominations. One of Matilda’swinners on Sunday night was British playwright Dennis Kelly, who […]
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