Coming to England, review: a wasted opportunity to show how Floella Benjamin so spectacularly beat the odds
Based on Floella Benjamin’s childhood memoir first published in 1997, Coming to England is billed as one of the highlights of Birmingham Rep’s new season, celebrating the…
Birmingham has been ruined by architectural monstrosities
Each revision of the Pevsner architectural guides – with their copious additional details and superb colour photography – opens readers’ eyes to what should have been obvious. Buildings…
The name’s Shelby… Tommy Shelby: have we met our new James Bond?
Cillian Murphy has recently been dragged into the “conversation” about the next James Bond. Presumably, this is because he combines the key attributes of two previous 007s…
Peaky Blinders, series 6, episode 1, review: goodbye Aunt Polly, hello teetotal Tommy
For a show hewn from pomp, crunching guitars and in-yer-face swagger, how clever to take our breath away with birdsong. In normal circumstances, 60 minutes of Peaky’s…
Journalist must name Birmingham pub bomb suspect who gave ‘full confession’, police tell court
A journalist who interviewed a terrorist suspected of carrying out the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings should be forced to reveal the suspect’s identity, a court was told…
Peaky Blinders series 6, first-look review: bombastic, yes, but still a masterclass in style and substance
“Since we last met,” said Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby midway through the opener of the final series of Peaky Blinders, “I’ve become a better man.” That is…
Luggage, coffee shops, Tommy Shelby haircuts: how Peaky Blinders conquered Britain
And the sixth and final series, which starts this Sunday, was trailed last week with a 42ft-high mural of Tommy on the side of a building on…
Husband and wife team cash in on electric car boom with London float
A Birmingham couple’s stake in their 65-year-old family business is expected to be valued at £16m after a stock market float, as they cash in on the electric car…
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, review: a wonderfully assured panto debut from Jason Donovan
Birmingham Hippodrome’s pantomime Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a show in which unbridled joy bursts from the stage. It begins with a fabulously over-the-top musical number…
Labour-led council backs down in row over £2.7bn road building contract
Leaders at Birmingham’s Labour-led council have pledged to “learn lessons” from a bitter row over a £2.7bn road building contract that threatened the future of one of…
The most ambitious travel projects that never happened
Imagine boarding a bullet train in China, zipping across eastern Siberia, and then completing a 13,000km high-speed journey two days later in Alaska via an undersea tunnel…