The Night of the Hunter (1955) was Charles Laughton's only film as director. Part expressionist horror movie, part luminous fairy tale, it contains some of the most haunting images in cinema. Willa (Shelley Winters) her throat cut and hair streaming out like seaweed, sitting upright in a submerged Model-T Ford. Her children, framed by looming animals, in a downriver flight from Preacher (Robert Mitchum). Preacher on horseback, a silhouetted threat on the horizon. Rachel Cooper (Li...

En route to make their fortunes, the passengers of the Golden Mary suffer a terrifying ordeal when their vessel collides with an iceberg. Now the helpless victims of shipwreck, they turn to the restorative powers of storytelling in a desperate attempt to raise morale. As each takes their turn, from the captain (whose tale is masterfully recounted by Dickens himself ) to the first mate (as told by Wilkie Collins), the Dickensian figures of miser and murderer, orphan and ghost, are brought o...

Over the decades, gay cinema has reflected the community's journey from persecution to emancipation to acceptance. Politicised dramas like Victim in the 60s, The Naked Civil Servant in the 70s, and the AIDS cinema of the 80s have given way in recent years to films which celebrate a vast array of gay life-styles. Gay films have undergone a major shift, from the fringe to the mainstream and the 2005 Academy Awards were dubbed ' the Gay Oscars' with gongs going to Brokeback Mountain, Capote a...

Simon Callow's candid and moving memoir of his passionate friendship with legendary literary agent Peggy Ramsay.' Exquisite... Perhaps the best theatrical memoir of our day' David Hare

Over the decades, gay cinema has reflected the community's journey from persecution to emancipation to acceptance. Politicised dramas like Victim in the 60s, The Naked Civil Servant in the 70s, and the AIDS cinema of the 80s have given way in recent years to films which celebrate a vast array of gay life-styles. Gay films have undergone a major shift, from the fringe to the mainstream and 2005's Academy Awards were dubbed ''the Gay Oscars'' with gongs going to Brokeba...

An alternative autobiography of the well-loved actor and man of the theatre, winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.In My Life in Pieces Simon Callow retraces his life through the multifarious performers, writers, productions and events which have left their indelible mark on him.The story begins with Peter Pan – his first ever visit to the theatre – before transporting us to southern Africa and South London, where Callow spent much of h...

From government ministers and spies to activists, drag queens and celebrities, Odd men out charts the tumultuous history of gay men in 1950s and 60s Britain. It takes us from the earliest tentative steps towards decriminalisation to the liberation movement of the early 1970s. Along the way, it catalogues shocking repression, including laws against homosexual activity and the use of brutal medical ‘treatments’. Odd men out draws on medical data and opinion polls, broadcast...

Imagined by Oscar Wilde's own grandson, this fictionalised conversation presents the essential biography of the poet, playwright and gay martyr.Renowned for his endlessly quotable pronouncements, Oscar Wilde cut a dashing figure in late Victorian London ... until his tragic downfall resulting from an ill-judged libel action. We remember him not only for his famous trial and imprisonment, but also for a "devil's dictionary" of timeless aphorisms and for the enduring brilliance of pl...

Jacques and His Master is a deliciously witty and entertaining 'variation' on Diderot's novel Jacques le fataliste, written for Milan Kundera's 'private pleasure' in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. When the 'heavy Russian irrationality' fell on Czechoslovakia he felt drawn to the spirit of the eighteenth century - 'And it seemed to me that nowhere was it to be found more densely concentrated than in that banquet of intelligence, humour and fantasy...

Before The Cradle Will Rock, before War of the Worlds, before Citizen Kane—there was Marching Song.At the age of 25 Orson Welles co-wrote, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. But this was not the first achievement in the young artist’s career. A few years earlier he terrorized America with his radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. And even before he conquered the airwaves, Welles had made a name for himself in New York th...

Rex Harrison’s fifth – but not last – wife, Elizabeth said of him: ‘I was very fond of Rex before we were married, and even more fond of him after we were married – it was the bit in between that was so difficult.’The Incomparable Rex is an affectionate and witty memoir of one of Britain’s great theatrical and cinematic talents, Rex Harrison. When he died in 1990, the English-speaking world lost one of its most eloquent and fastidious high comedians.Patric...

How are great turning points in history experienced by individuals?As Britain pulls away from Europe great British writers come together to give voice to their innermost feelings. These writers include novelists, writers of books for children, of comic books, humourists, historians, biographers, nature writers, film writers, travel writers, writers young and old and from an extraordinary range of backgrounds. Most are famous perhaps because they have won the Booker or other literar...