As winter approaches and the days get shorter spare a thought for the individuals featured in Hyberborea: Stories from the Russian Arctic, a series of photographs by Evgenia Arbugaeva currently on exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery. Of the subjects, some are indigenous to the remote and harsh environment (winter temperatures reaching -28 degrees Celsius) while others have moved to the Russian…
We studied journalism at Birkbeck and meet regularly to share our writing and ideas. Inspired by London’s 4th Plinth we set up our blog as a cultural exchange with reviews, stories, analysis and viewpoints.
Click on the tabs to see what we’ve been doing lately.
We hope you like it. Let us know.
The 5th Plinthers
Janet Murray. An obituary for my friend and tutor
Posted by Stephen |
An obituary of the journalist and lecturer Janet (Jan) Murray who dies at the Marie Curie Hospice in London on the 1st of July 2016
Review: The Trouble with Scott Capurro at The Bill Murray @CamdenFringe
Posted by Carmel |
“They’re just jokes – I’m not even gay!”
Scott Capurro greets “all my imaginary friends in the front row” as he skips onstage at The Bill Murray. The front row is conspicuously empty – who after all would be so foolish as to sit there? But there’s no escape later in the set when he begins to interact with members of the audience. Before long a man who came out at the age of 30 is describing…
Committee a Musical at the Donmar Theatre
Posted by Mary |
Committee A Musical is the Donmar’s new play based on a Parliamentary Inquiry into the high profile childrens charity Kids Company.
Book review: Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Posted by Sonali |
Michael Ondaatje’s second book Running in the Family (1982) is set in Sri Lanka where he was born in 1943, and is ostensibly a family memoir. In truth, the book's free form narrative structure also embraces fiction, history, anecdotes, and travelogue, interspersed with a selection of Ondaatje’s poems.
Ondaatje’s heritage is Dutch and Ceylonese: his father was Tamil and his mother, Doris…
Book review: Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Posted by Susan |
Pacey and fizzily plotted, Francis Spufford’s Golden Hill is a breathless romp of a novel. The year is 1746, and Mr Smith, a glib tongued and amiable English charmer, is newly pitched up in Manhattan with an order for one thousand pounds in his pocket.
Trump’s First Year and the Foreign Media
Posted by J Bloggs |
Has the foreign press done enough in terms of holding Donald Trump to account in his first year as US president? Trump’s approval ratings have remained static despite the FBI investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 election, sleaze allegations and his generally unpresidential conduct. Even the publication of Michael Wolff’s book ‘Fire and Fury’ hasn’t fazed him. This topic was central to…