THE PRISONER: PATRICK McGOOHAN The recent death of the creator of The Prisoner Patrick McGoohan was given surprisingly little publicity. One of those items towards the end of the news where the newsreader adopts an appropriately nostalgic, slightly reverential tone. Some fairly muted obituaries in the newspapers, with the standard shots of McGoohan in his...
Category: Articles
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EXPLORING TELEVISUALITY: The Tudors
What is ‘televisuality’? The word has been bandied around rather loosely by media academics for a decade or so. Broadly speaking we can say that the word refers to the attempts that have been made to examine the fundamental nature of television as a form of communication. But there is little consensus between those...
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BOB DYLAN: Waiting For You
Happiness is but a state of mind. Anytime you want, you can cross the state line…. Waiting For You was written for the soundtrack of Callie Khouri’s 2002 movie, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, a wryly bittersweet and avowedly feminist tale centred around the complex relationship between a mother and daughter. As with...
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THE BEATLES: Who Could Ask For More: Overview and Chapter Summary
WHO COULD ASK FOR MORE: RECLAIMING THE BEATLES …When asked by a journalist whether the group intended writing any anti-war songs, John – without a moment’s hesitation – replied tartly that ALL their songs were anti-war songs. These songs articulated both the immense fear that lay just beneath the surface of the supposedly...
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RICHARD THOMPSON Sweet Warrior
Richard Thompson can transport you to places in his songs like no-one else. Drawing his inspiration from folk songs, oral tales, tattered history books, half remembered stories, bizarre websites and advertising catalogues, Thompson is a master of time and space. Many of his best songs place you in a specific historical context, then move...
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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Magic: A Review
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: MAGIC: A REVIEW BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: MAGIC Bruce Springsteen’s Magic is a journey into the darkness of the ‘American night’; a portrait of a country mired in confusion, its value-systems broken down, its soul in torment. As a writer, Springsteen is often misunderstood. This is partly because he often casts his narratives in...
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THE BEATLES: Extract from ‘Who Could Ask For More’ Two: Hey Jude
HEY JUDE This is the second extract from my forthcoming book Who Could Ask For More: Reclaiming The Beatles. This extract features what may well be their finest hour, and explores how it focuses on the relationship between Paul and John In 1968 The Beatles, along with the youth culture that they spoke for and...
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MOVIE: Children of Men: Contemporary Distopia
I saw a film today, oh boy…. It’s only once every few years that you walk out of a film and you are so gobsmacked that you can hardly speak. It happened to me a couple of days ago on my first viewing of Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, adapted from the novel by P.D....
