Culture & History
I write regularly about cultural issues in the British press, including drawing on my work as a historian to provide context for contemporary debate.
I can be irrepressible when talking history: I recently enjoyed explaining the relative sexual virtues of Elizabeth I on Channel 5’s ‘Last Days of Mary Queen of Scots’, and leading a historians’ live-tweet of historical context for the BBC’s Wolf Hall. You’ll also find some of my book reviews, lighter pieces and broader arts writing on this page.
My month in Kim Kardashian’s korset
written for The Times, 9th June 2016 I’m standing in the lobby of the Library of Congress in Washington DC, stripped down to my underwear. I have come here on a research trip not thinking that my unusual underwear might get me into trouble. I’ve spent 30 days winched into a “waist trainer”, or...
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The Marxist at the Met and her choir of the homeless
written for The Times, 22nd March 2016 The last time Penny Woolcock was in a rehearsal room, she was at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, walking the Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien through her production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. Woolcock is used to big budgets: her first production for the Met, John...
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Book Review – Elizabethan England and the Islamic World
written for The Times, 19th March 2016 THIS ORIENT ISLE: ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD BY JERRY BROTTON, ALLEN LANE, 384pp, £20. by Jerry Brotton Every TV viewer is familiar with the grotesque image of the aged Elizabeth I’s blackened teeth, from Bette Davis to Anita Dobson. Jerry Brotton...
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The Bedouin boy taking his epic to the Oscars
reviewed for The Times, 25th February 2016 On a wet Tuesday morning in London, Naji Abu Nowar sinks on to my living-room sofa with the dazed expression of a 34-year-old who has just won his first Bafta and hasn’t slept since Sunday. “I’m pretty sure Julie Walters thinks I’m a stalker. She was...
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Book Review – Shylock is My Name: The Merchant of Venice Retold
reviewed for The Times, 23rd January 2016 Shylock is My Name: The Merchant of Venice Retold. Vintage, pp.277, £16.99, 9781781090282 by Howard Jacobson If you want to safeguard against anyone taking your anti-heroine seriously, name her “Anna Livia Plurabelle Cleopatra A Thing of Beauty Is A Joy Forever...
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There’s nothing patriotic about William Blake’s Jerusalem
written for The Spectator, 14 January 2016 In this week’s diary, Tristram Hunt puts his money behind Jerusalem as a new English National Anthem. ‘God Save the Queen’ isn’t going anywhere as the United Kingdom’s theme, but there’s room for a local melody when Team England take to the field (as...
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