Alexander Mackendrick didn't just direct The Man in the White Suit: he wrote the first draft of the screenplay. In his book Lethal Innocence: The Cinema of Alexander Mackendrick, Philip Kemp quotes Mackendrick on the genesis of that screenplay. It began life as an unperformed theatre play by his cousin Roger MacDougall: "I did something really wicked: I took Roger's hero and gave him a minor role, and pivoted the whole story around a secondary character, the one played in the film by Alec Guinness, to make a new story entirely. And Balcon liked it, and approved it. When I ...
The Leicester Mercury has a story, but doesn't know the half of it: New live music venue hopes for former board game cafe in Leicester city centre An empty unit in Leicester city centre could be given a new lease of life as a late-night entertainment venue. Generic Leisure Ltd has lodged an application seeking a licence for indoor sports events, plays, films, and live and recorded music at the site at 22 Silver Street. Former board game cafe be damned. This was once Il Rondo, where some of the top Sixties bands played, naming it as their favourite venue ...
Andy Burnham I am away on holiday for the next week so shan't be able to comment again before Mr Burnham's accession into the premiership. I wish him all the luck in the world. I've seen him described as having policies not much different from those of Sir Keir Starmer, but a better communicator. I think that's a bit unfair, and still hope he is secretly negotiating with the Libera Democrats and Greens to beef up his cabinet by bringing some of them into it. Maybe Sir Ed Davey at the Home Office; a Green at Environment, thus releasing Ed ...
I disagreed with Ann Widdecombe on almost everything. Most fundamentally, I profoundly opposed her views anti the rights of LGBT+ people, which I regarded as illiberal and deeply hurtful. Yet politics is rarely as simple as agreement and disagreement. I first interacted with Ann Widdecombe twenty years ago when she was a Tory MP and I was a local radio reporter in the Midlands and I interviewed her down the line about an event she was due to be attending at Coventry Cathedral. More recently, I had the pleasure (and, I'll admit, slight dread) of debating her live on GB ...
William Hague and Ann Widdecombe at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, 1999. (Photo: The Guardian) Like most of you, I did not know Ann Widdecombe personally. That does not, naturally, prevent me from having views on her political legacy. Indeed, I have many. When it was first announced that she had died, I considered writing a few words. They would not have constituted a tribute, but nor would they have been disrespectful. It is perfectly possible to assess someone's political career honestly without either descending into abuse or pretending, simply because they have died, that one never profoundly disagreed ...
"The world-renowned academic institution has nothing to say in response to a six-month investigation by Byline Times raising serious concerns about the safeguarding of students and foreign influence at Cambridge University." Nafeez Ahmed, Peter Jukes and Hardeep Matharu ask why. "Over the last ten years the question of Irish unity has moved to the centre of the Irish political stage. This surprisingly rapid change has been driven by demographic and economic trends, to the advantage of Irish nationalists both north and south of the border."Patrick Cockburn reviews For and Against a United Ireland by Fintan O'Toole and Sam McBride. Kate ...
The Independent reports on the man who everybody is hoping will take out Nigel Farage in the Clacton by-election, as far-fetched as that may seen. The paper says that the likelihood is that when the residents of Clacton come to cast their votes in the newly announced by-election later this summer, they will have a choice between two main candidates: a man with a habit of spouting (what is, to some) total rubbish and... a sentient bin. This is because, in a rare show of unity, the major parties have refused to put forward candidates to fight in Clacton. Labour ...
Warning issued as beach closest to Leicestershire shuts amid health fears So ran a headline in the Leicester Mercury. I wondered where the nearest beach to Leicestershire is. Hunstanton? Skegness? But it is, of course, on Rutland Water. The story is about the brief closure (it was reopened this morning) of the beach at Sykes Lane there because of dangerous levels of blue-green algae. I took these photos some years ago at Whitwell Harbour, which is just along the coast but lacks sand. Secret Birmingham has worked out that Rutland Water has the nearest Blue Flag beach to them too. ...
The latest edition of the email newsletter for my podcast, Political Fictions, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: Welcome to the latest email for our podcast, Political Fictions: political drama on screen and on the page. Please do spread the word about the podcast to your friends, colleagues and even dastardly rivals who you want to distract from doing something else. Now, on to the proper business of this email which this time is ...
Following dozens of nominations from oppressed serfs in Sherwood Forest, West Bridgford Wire wins our Headline of the Day Award.
NATO The NATO summit was a wild diplomatic roller coaster ride. But then, how could it be otherwise with President Donald J. Trump in attendance. Ankara was another example of his negotiating style: Start with the maximalist position delivered in the loudest and most belligerent style and then gradually back away from that and claim a happy agreement which is probably nowhere near the truth. Trump arrived demanding Denmark give him Greenland. If the Danes refused, he would withdraw all US troops from Europe. He also said that the US was ending all trade with Spain because of Prime Minister ...
The most 1967 track of all? More 1967 than David Hemmings Happens? These random paragraphs from a Believer article by Madeleine Watts may explain what is going on: Nancy Sinatra had, until the mid-sixties, been the favorite daughter of her famous father and a mediocre pop singer without a hit. Hazlewood changed that. He wrote "These Boots Are Made For Walking" for Nancy. He wrote "Sugar Town" for Nancy. And he wrote "Some Velvet Morning," a song that Rolling Stone, The Daily Telegraph and other publications have called one of the greatest duets ever recorded. Phaedra is a woman who ...
The Guardian reports that convicted fraudster George Cottrell was routinely introduced as Nigel Farage's chief of staff before the 2024 election despite denials that he had any official role, according to a Reform UK candidate who stood aside for the party leader. The paper says that others who have been closely involved in the party have also claimed Cottrell arranged the Land Rovers that ferried Reform's newly elected MPs to parliament, and that he covered the cost of a fundraising lunch with potential donors before the national vote: Questions about the role of Cottrell - who is a convicted fraudster ...