My Hopes and Fears for 2020

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As a new decade beckons, I’m deeply worried about the way our world seems to be heading. As W.H. Auden wrote on ‘September 1, 1939‘ (a poem deemed so prescient he tried to bury it …) Continue reading

Merry Christmas To All My Readers

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Just a little note from me to wish you all a merry Christmas. If you thought you’d seen off my lists for another year, make room for one more as in a few days, I’ll be looking back at the end of this decade in music, books and film. But first, let’s enjoy this nostalgic carol from Lana Del Rey and friends.

As some of you may know, The Trial of Christine Keeler is coming to BBC1. First announced here, the six-part drama starts at 9 pm this Sunday, December 29th. With the exhibition Dear Christine heading to London in February, and Scandal set for reissue by the BFI, the women of the Profumo Affair may finally get their due in 2020.

 

Marilyn’s ‘Mirror’ Review Goes to Print

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My review of Amanda Konkle’s excellent book, Some Kind of Mirror: Creating Marilyn Monroe, is featured in the latest issue (#38) of UK fanzine Mad About Marilyn, alongside articles about Marilyn’s arduous promotional tour for the final Marx Brothers movie, Love Happy (1949); ‘A New Marilyn Comes Back’, first published by Movie Spotlight in 1956; and a profile of photographer Bruno Bernard, aka ‘Bernard of Hollywood’.

The delightful cover photo was taken at Richard Avedon‘s New York studio in July 1958, shortly before Marilyn flew to Los Angeles to shoot Some Like It Hot. If you’d like to subscribe to Mad About Marilyn, please email Emma: emmadowning@blueyonder.co.uk

2019: A Year in Books

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First published in 2015 as Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes and now available in English, Zuleikha tells the story of a Tatar woman whose brutish husband and vindictive mother-in-law treat her as a slave. This all changes around 1930 when along with other peasants and Leningrad intellectuals – a motley crew of ‘enemies of the state’ – Zuleikha is transported to a gulag in Siberia. Beside the age-old themes of tyranny and suffering, Zuleikha offers a surprisingly hopeful vision of how ordinary people can keep their wits and capacity for love, even in the direst circumstances. Continue reading

2019: A Year In Film and TV

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In 2019, we said goodbye to sixties icons Albert Finney and Sue Lyon, and remembered Sharon TateContinue reading