In 1930 George Arliss won an Academy Award for his starring role in the film ‘Disraeli’. The film’s interpretation of Disraeli offers an interesting insight into the way in which … Read the rest
In 1930 George Arliss won an Academy Award for his starring role in the film ‘Disraeli’. The film’s interpretation of Disraeli offers an interesting insight into the way in which … Read the rest
This Saturday I’ll be presenting Very British Dystopias on Radio Four as part of its Archive Hour series.
The documentary is partly based on work I’ve done for this forthcoming … Read the rest
Last week I finished a documentary for Radio 4 and I thought that some of you might be interested in knowing more about the process of getting … Read the rest
How we imagine politics is sometimes as important as how it really is – if the latter can ever be determined, that is. Indeed according to Benedict Anderson in his … Read the rest
As my book on British political fiction comes closer to completion, I am now catching up on reading things I really should have looked at some time ago. As I … Read the rest
The return, for a final season, of The Thick of It and news that Yes Minister is to be revived for the small screen might suggest that comedies about politics … Read the rest
As someone with a research interest British political fictions, I have been thoroughly enjoying the new Danish political drama Borgen on BBC4. Casting an eye over the reviews it would … Read the rest
In 1953 the Labour MP Maurice Edelman wrote the political novel Who Goes Home in which a revered Parliamentary commentator states:
On the whole, British Prime Ministers have to be … Read the rest
Winifred Holtby’s South Riding (1936) was that rare literary beast, a novel about, as the author put it, ‘the drama of English local government’; she dedicated it to her mother, … Read the rest