In 2019, the Yale historian David Blight won a Pulitzer prize, for his monumental biography of Frederick Douglass. In 2020, Blight was beginning work on his next book, about the life of the writer and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson. Then, his college president called. “Peter Salovey called me up, in the depths of … Read more
One of the oldest indie labels in Britain sits down a muddy lane on an old RAF site, less than a mile from the sea, half an hour from the mountains of Eryri. Founded in 1969, Sain – meaning sound in Welsh, pronounced (in English) like “sign” – is an unusual label, host to a … Read more
Bianca Raffaella is showing me the huge canvases she has painted for her debut solo show Faint Memories when a strange realisation hits me. I can see these beautiful depictions of petals and stems in their full, widescreen splendour – and she can’t. The 32-year-old was born with congenital toxoplasmosis and is registered blind: her … Read more
Unless it becomes a ratings smash (and that isn’t impossible), With Love, Meghan doesn’t just represent the hard launch of Duchess of Sussex’s new career as a Martha Stewart-style lifestyle inspo guru; it might also be the final thing she makes for Netflix. The terms of the deal Harry and Meghan signed with the streamer … Read more
In 1992, Jack Vettriano’s painting The Singing Butler was rejected by the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Anyone who has seen some of the dross picked for display in the RA’s annual open submission collision of amateur artists and big stars in recent decades will be thinking: “Ouch, must’ve been a real dud.” But The Singing … Read more
In the summer of 1985, I made the long pilgrimage from my home in Cheadle Hulme to London’s glamorous Hammersmith Novotel for the Commodore computer show. As a 14-year-old gamer, this was a chance to play the latest titles and see some cool new joysticks, but I was also desperate to visit one particular exhibitor: … Read more
It might have been a bad night for streamers, blockbusters and horror movies, but last night’s Oscars was another excellent year for the Cannes film festival. The major winner, Anora, which picked up five awards including best picture, best director and best actress, was a Palme d’Or winner at last May’s edition and became only … Read more
When Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie asked participants at her annual writers’ workshop in Lagos to introduce themselves, one woman was so excited to be close to her idol that she immediately burst into tears. “She asked someone to get me water and my heart just melted,” says writer and actor Uzoamaka Power. “[That workshop] … Read more
Twenty-two years ago, the last time Adrien Brody won the Academy award for best actor, film-maker Michael Moore accepted his own Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, a documentary about America’s obsession with guns, by offering a preview of sorts of his next feature, Fahrenheit 9/11. He decried then president George W Bush as “fictitious” (alluding … Read more
When William Tyler put out Goes West in 2019, the album minted what the Nashville-born guitarist calls “an expansive, aspirational part of my life”. It was a prettier take on the crisp heartland Krautrock of his 2016 breakout Modern Country. Both were released on renowned US indie label Merge, his home after starting out as … Read more