Culture Posts
Robin Gibb Obituary
Robin Gibb, who has died aged 62, was one of the three brothers who made up the international chart-topping group the Bee Gees.
Another Account Of 'The Natwest Three' Fraud Case Hits Bookshops
This week a second member of the convicted trio of British bank fraudsters who style themselves 'The NatWest Three' has broken his silence and published a book about his experiences - 'A Price To Pay: The Inside Story of the NatWest Three' (Gibson Square, £8.99).
George Best's widow and his lover unite against 'totally unfair' memoir
The former mistress of George Best, Gina Devivo, has joined forces with the footballer's widow to claim that a new book about the period leading up to his death is largely fiction.
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This much I know: Christopher Eccleston
Acting is a mixture of instinct and analysis, but if I had to take one away it would be the analysis. It's about the endless boring repetition of line learning and then at some point you're free of the script and can be instinctive with it.I've not worked for seven months and it does make me anxious. It concerns me. And I feel – to a certain extent – that I'm wasting my life because I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do.Criminal or cop… you find the hero in the villain and the villain in the hero. That's the answer. We all hold the duality.My family takes what I do with a pinch of salt. One of the best things I ever heard my dad say was at a family party. Someone said: "You must be very proud of Chris." And he said: "I'm very proud of all three of my sons."You take the work home with you. If you spend the day replicating what it feels like for your children to die, for example, it's like you're playing with your chemistry set, so there's going to be a little bit of backwash. I go for a run. And drink red wine. Sometimes I run down the street drinking red wine!The only thing to be scared of is the death of loved ones. I'm not scared of anything else.I'd like to be remembered with a smile, with a laugh at my foolishness. I'm foolish from the minute I put my feet on the floor getting out of bed.The holy trinity is Eric Morecambe, Les Dawson and Tommy Cooper.I have been mostly very happy in my life. I put it down to being loved. I've been absolutely certain of the love of my parents and my twin brothers.My earliest memory is turning right at the top of our path on my bike and saying to myself: "I am me, doing this now." I was about four. I turned right, said that to myself and shot off. I think it was a celebration of the moment.The staples of drama are not people who have been happy. Nobody wants to watch a drama about a happy person.Paul Scholes is the greatest footballer I've ever seen and he conducts his career in an exemplary fashion. I saw him in central Manchester. I've seen people – celebrities – before, and there's no way I would approach them. But I wasn't missing this opportunity. He was very modest, very intelligent.I get a great response from youngsters. Usually they don't say much – it's quite overwhelming for them to meet Doctor Who. One little boy just burst into tears. His mum said to me: "Will you say hello?" I did, and he burst into tears – and I understand it, that confusion about what's real. Long may it last.When I act badly it's because I chose a bad script. You do it because you've been unemployed or you think it might be a good move, and it never is.Everyone has redeeming features. Everyone. Whether they have enough for us to forgive them is up to the individual.The football and bitter are obviously vastly superior in the north.Christopher Eccleston stars in The Shadow Line, which starts on 5 May on BBC2 at 9pm
Tribeca film festival: British film about paedophile suspect among winners
A British film about the death of a suspected paedophile has won the award for best narrative short at the Tribeca film festival in New York.
Is happily ever after just a fairytale?
If there's one thing Hollywood films and royal weddings have in common, it's to sacrifice reality in the name of fairytale. Eyes meet across a crowded room; will they? Won't they? Of course they will and they'll live happily ever after. To the media (and indeed, to most of us) the prince and his bride aren't people, they're characters in a story. In the world of the modern fairy tale how can romance possibly fail?
Will Harry Potter's final fling be the one we've been waiting for?
JK Rowling's Harry Potter books are a guilty pleasure without all that much guilt, a stupefyingly English series of stories that somehow avoid harnessing the worst aspects of petty-minded Anglo-Saxon snobbery. Yet the film series, with notable exceptions, has largely failed to capture the richness and depth of the books. Up until the last instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, I'd pretty much given up on expecting anything beyond bland mediocrity from David Yates's extended tenure in charge.
Dionne Bromfield: 'With my friends, I'm definitely still the teenage kid'
Dionne Bromfield sweeps into her record label's office – her hair huge, her body tiny – flanked by a team of preeners and pamperers. She is wearing a Sass & Bide playsuit, Carvela heels and Topshop Boutique leather jacket and the effect is only slightly compromised by the fact that she is simultaneously stuffing her face with a ham and crisp sandwich.
Paul Simon bridges age gap with songs for the indie generation
At a recent Los Angeles concert given by Paul Simon, the singer's drummer and percussionist, Jamey Haddad, looked out from the stage at the cheering crowd and noticed something unusual. It was the startling age range of the throng packed into the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood that caught his eye.
Ray Davies: 'I'm easy to love… but impossible to live with'
Ray Davies has now been famous for close on half a century, and yet the experience seems to have changed him hardly at all. He still lives barely a mile from where he was born (Fortis Green, in north London). He is still friends with people he knew at school. In a pub, he can still "disappear", a talent that enables him always to drink his pint in peace ("it's a pleasant surprise for people, when they find out who I am, and what I've done"). Then there is his interview technique. Davies dislikes doing interviews, and gives relatively few, but if you get lucky and find yourself alone with him, the surprise is that he answers every question with so little guile. Naturally, this is thrilling; I'm a journalist, after all. But it's also unnerving. You expect men of his generation and class to be blithe, and a little butch. He is neither. Quiet and self-deprecating, he has trouble, sometimes, meeting my eye. Is he shy? "Yes, immensely," he says, exhaling. It's as if he is relieved that I have spotted this.
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