‘I don’t care what a bunch of 19-year-old gender-studies students think’
Owers says he won’t take on authors for the sake of it. “If what they’re arguing is of no merit, or is pure provocation with no real…
‘Politically incorrect’ character in Peter James’ Grace detective series rewritten by ITV
John Simm, who has the starring role as DI Roy Grace, added: “We’ve had to change Norman a little bit from the novels because the world has…
Chivalry, review: Steve Coogan stars as sleazeball in smart satire on Hollywood and sexual politics
Steve Coogan is very good at playing a middle-aged man nervously navigating the new “woke” landscape while desperate to sleep with women half his age. In Chivalry…
Why Elon Musk is wrong about Netflix’s ‘woke mind virus’
There are many major figures currently having their films or television programmes financed and shown by Netflix who could be defined as anti-woke, or at least politically…
Who would dare write a rom-com in today’s climate?
Indeed, many of the great rom-coms that I grew up with would never get made today. The “problematic” nature of Pretty Woman is pretty obvious, from its…
Scandaltown, Mike Bartlett’s modern-day Restoration comedy, feels like champagne gone flat
You can’t accuse Mike Bartlett of running shy from genre. At the Old Vic, you can see his new play The 47th, which imagines the 2024 American…
Jez Butterworth’s bold, brilliant Jerusalem wouldn’t be written today
Then there is Johnny himself. He is feckless, deceitful, deeply dodgy, but Christ, I rooted for him throughout: yearning for him to have a proper relationship with…
Jez Butterworth’s bold, brilliant Jerusalem wouldn’t be written today
Then there is Johnny himself. He is feckless, deceitful, deeply dodgy, but Christ, I rooted for him throughout: yearning for him to have a proper relationship with…
The truth about my raucous lunch with JK Rowling
This week a perfectly nice woman canvassing for Labour knocked on my door and I explained to her that I would not be voting for a party…
Why ‘misogynist’ Kingsley Amis is too good to cancel
He loathed experimental fiction (he would have been furious, but unsurprised, that the centenary of Ulysses has overshadowed his own), prompting his son Martin Amis to express…
British culture doesn’t need ‘fixing’ by American ideology
The Americanisation of British culture is, sadly, nothing new. But teens are no longer simply finishing sentences with a rising inflection after hours of watching Friends; the…
From Louis CK to Will Smith – a celebrity apology is never enough for Twitter
Yes, he still has a substantial following for his comedy – and can support himself by publishing content on his own site. But those most vehemently against…
To Kill a Mockingbird teaches us about defying the mob. Let’s not try to cancel it
It’s true that the novel (even if you allow for the fact that it was written in very different times) is not perfect, and it is regrettable…
Cancelling David Livingstone is the epitome of woke overreach
How did David Livingstone, arguably one of Scotland’s most famous abolitionists, end up on Glasgow’s iconoclast topple list? Glasgow City’s newly released report, Slavery and Atlantic Commerce,…
Fantastic Beasts’ biggest problem isn’t JK Rowling – or Johnny Depp
Take a hike Johnny Depp. On your Quidditch stick, JK Rowling. You’ve both been demoted from your previous position as Most Problematic Person In the Fantastic Beasts…
Ode to a trigger warning: University warns students of ‘sexist’ content in John Keats poems
Bath Spa also said that works from Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley featured “violence, sexism, misogyny, death, mental illness, self-harm and suicide”. Although not mentioned, it is possible…
The quisling Society of Authors has pulped free speech
It is remarkable that the Society of Authors has chosen to risk its 138-year-old reputation over a little social-media outrage. (Remember that the original criticism of Clanchy…
Jacqueline Wilson interview: I avoid some subjects – but children aren’t such innocent little things
She knows she is fortunate that, in her mid-70s, she is still going strong. Her father died of heart and kidney failure in his 50s. “I’ve had…
Novelist Anne Tyler fears cancel culture will soon stop her from writing male lead characters
Anne Tyler, the Pulitzer prize-winning novelist, has said she expects to be told she should not write male lead characters “any day now” in an era of…
No blacking up, but trans jokes are fine? The BBC’s Little Britain edits make no sense
In the nine years since the show first aired, the UK has not undergone a damascene conversion from racist hellhole to tolerant sunny upland. The idea that…
The BBC is replacing arts criticism with bland cheerleading
I think that there are two things going on here. There is now a mission that listeners must hear from the people who are more closely connected…
Why we must keep playing Russian music
It was inevitable. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, that celebration of Russia’s successful defence against Napoleon’s invading army, has itself become a casualty of war. The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra…
Cancel culture’s biggest foe: the man publishing books the mainstream won’t touch
“And we couldn’t advertise for it, there were no reviews for it, many bookstores refused to carry it, many libraries boycotted it. The idea that a book…
The toxic fandoms who tried to stop my book prove how much cancel culture is spreading
Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. Before I even finished my book, his estate – who I always hoped, and still do hope, would support the book –…
How bullying music fans made one author’s life hell
Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. Before I even finished my book, his estate – who I always hoped, and still do hope, would support the book –…