Benedict Cumberbatch
It’s so hard to do the right thing
Delighted though we all are that Benedict Cumberbatch has decided to allow a Ukrainian family to live in one of…
Wain’s world
Before Tom Kitten, before Felix the Cat, before Thomas ‘Tom’ Cat, Sylvester James Pussycat Sr, Top Cat and Fat Freddy’s…
When did traditional masculinity become toxic?
It’s hard for privileged white men to stay relevant in this age of identity politics but a number of fail-safe…
A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do
Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog could also be called The Power of Benedict Cumberbatch, as he’s so spectacular.…
Secrets and spies
The Courier is a Cold War spy thriller and the prospect of a Cold War spy thriller always makes my…
War has broken out between me and my siblings
Last night I watched a boxed set. Parade’s End is a small box set as box sets go, and quite…
Gripping, immersive and powerful: 1917 reviewed
Sam Mendes’s 1917 is the first world war drama that this week won the Golden Globe for best film and…
Benedict Cumberbatch on playing my husband, Dominic Cummings
Imagine looking at a photo of a stranger and feeling in response, quite naturally, the sort of happy affection you…
Sky Atlantic’s Patrick Melrose adaptation is triumphant
Warning: if you haven’t seen it yet, the first episode of the much-anticipated Patrick Melrose (Sky Atlantic, Sunday) contains scenes…
Fashion faux pas
‘I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking,’ said a pouty Derek Zoolander…
What fun it will be if Trump becomes president
I suppose spite and schadenfreude are thinnish reasons, intellectually, for wishing Donald Trump to become the next American president (and…
Why should we listen to Benedict Cumberbatch on Syrian refugees?
Because I just don’t know what to think about the Syrian refugee crisis — not even after Simon Schama’s powerfully…
Nice work
You can’t play the part of Hamlet, only parts of Hamlet. And the bits Benedict Cumberbatch offers us are of…
Salvation through music
Ours is the era of everybody’s autobiography. Bookshops groan with misery-lit memoirs — Never Let Me Go, Dysfunction Without Tears…
The actor-commentariat
I’ve never been terribly keen on actors. I prefer hairdressers and accountants. And teachers and builders and lawyers. I may…
Coloured
Benedict Cumberbatch apologised at length: ‘devastated’, ‘shaming’, ‘offended’, ‘inappropriate’. What had he done? Been caught in a compromising situation or…
High life
I had a short chat with BBC radio concerning the actor Jack Nicholson, whom I knew slightly during the Seventies…
In the closet
The Imitation Game is a biopic starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician who broke the German’s Enigma…
Brace yourself
Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave goes directly to the heart of American slavery without any shilly-shallying — unlike The…
Staying alive
Sherlock’s not dead. A good thing, since on New Year’s Day BBC1 launched its third series of Sherlock, and it’d…
It’s everywhere
They’re now televising proceedings from the Court of Appeal. Great. As if I didn’t have enough to do already, keeping…
Going nowhere
Just how interesting you find The Fifth Estate may entirely depend on how interested you are in the whistle-blowing site…
