Uncle Spaso’s dog Sila waded through the snow ahead of us. She would disappear for a while, only to emerge again right in front of us, happily wagging her tail. Uncle Spaso said the dog …
Read the full story »Original short stories, comedy and poetry from the best writers both old and new
Reviewing film, theatre, comedy, books, music, art and poetry. All that and some interviews too
A showcase of the UK’s brightest and most illustrious illustrative talent
NFTU recommends the best plays, gigs, galleries, readings and films for you to go see this week
NFTU’s bloggers discuss books, film and even dating
by Robin Cooke
We realise that a lot of our readers are aspiring writers, and book enthusiasts, so we thought that we should give you a round up of some of the competitions, prizes and events on offer in 2010. Read the full story »
by Jacques Testard
Introduction: The idea is quite clearly set out above. I will hereby attempt to bring you an insight into New York City’s cultural happenings, covering just about anything from music to books and …
by Tristan Summerscale
BOOKS
PETER CAREY
Foyles Charing Cross
Tuesday February 2nd
Peter Carey has twice won the Man Booker Prize, and is the only person to have done that apart from South African gloomster J.M Coetzee. His new …
by Thomas Eckhardt
BOOKS
STORYTAILS
The Pangea Project
Sunday January 31
What kind of people would we be if we didn’t plug our supporters? Gabriella Apicella, who writes many film reviews for us has started her very own storytelling evening …
I have become invisible. That, or I’ve developed a hideous facial deformity, I’ve started exuding the tang of decomposing catfood and nobody dares tell me, or I’m suddenly dressing like a down-on-her-luck hooker … which …
Julian Jarrold’s Brideshead Revisited epitomises everything that is wrong with modern film. Indeed, I’ll go further: it epitomises everything that is wrong with modern art and culture. I have been saving this card, this little diatribe …
Or should that be ‘everyone’? I know there’s a difference, but which one is right? If they’re both ‘right’, which one is better? What do I really mean?
by Tristan Summerscale
THEATRE
MIDSUMMER (A PLAY WITH SONGS)
Soho Theatre, London, until 6th February 2010
‘Part Richard Curtis, part Irvine Welsh’, this play concerns two thirty-somethings, a rapacious divorce lawyer and an unsuccessful car dealer, sitting in …
by Thomas Eckhardt
POETRY
THE 2009 T S ELIOT PRIZE READING
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7:30pm, Sunday January 17th, £12
South Bank, London, SE1 8XX
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/
‘The TS Eliot Poetry Prize Reading? Give over. Nothing but a bunch of old funny duddies’. …
When it’s a drink with a friend, of course. Or perhaps going to an exhibition, or the cinema, or a gig, or a show that you know they’d be interested in, so you call them, …
A bunch of mildly talented people, a few chancers thrown in – all manipulated by a multi-millionaire with a cynical eye on the commercial. Yes, it was School of Saatchi. To give the show some credit …
So some things never change, but then sometimes an unchanging thing can be quite surprising in itself. I am not often taken aback by The Sunday Times Culture magazine Books section, but there, right before …
It’s a week after my first date with “Adrian”, the man I spotted on the Piccadilly Line reading The Liar, and at last, things are starting to kick off, response-wise. Despite the relative paucity of …
In which a date actually happens. Sorry to keep people hanging on over the weekend, by the way – I was distracted, not by a series of hot dates, but by social obligations to some people …
by Hannah Gilkes
Maureen Duffy (b. 1933 in Worthing, Sussex) is a notable contemporary British poet, playwright and novelist. She has also published a literary biography of Aphra Behn, and The Erotic World of Faery a …
There is a society for young publishers, you know. Ingeniously, it’s called ‘The Society of Young Publishers’, or the ‘SYP’. They run speaker meetings, social events, and contribute to industry bodies as well as just …
Two weeks, ten cards … one man?
As Week Two of Project Cover Girl opens, I’m feeling fairly optimistic. I’ve leaped the first hurdle, I’ve refined my carding (and observation) techniques, and all in all …
by Tristan Summerscale
THEATRE, COMEDY
Kim Noble Will Die – Soho Theatre
Until 9th January
This show has been called ‘unwatchable’, ‘visceral’, ‘hysterical’ and ‘inspiring genius’. It’s meant to be one of the best shows to catch over Christmas …
Welcome back! And what a week it was …The first thing I discovered in my quest for compatible, literate blokes was how few people you see on the tube these days who are reading actual …
London, August 2009. Having just dispatched a no-going-back email to the man who’s been toying with my affections for the last six months, I find myself at pretty much the loosest end I’ve ever experienced. I’m unemployed, heartbroken, and single for the first time in six years. Clearly the immediate solution is to get drunk. But what to do in the long term?
I remember a time when Eddie Izzard was so funny that I was allowed to miss my first university appraisal to go and see his live show in Birmingham. ‘If you’ve got the chance to …
Last week brought the news that the Borders chain of bookshops has gone into administration. I don’t see how anyone was surprised, since its downfall was caused by its own customers.
As a high-profile magazine editor, many of our readers would be interested to know how you got to be where you are today?
Hard work, a nonchalance towards accepted norms of spelling and
grammar, and actimel.
Who …
by Miguel Cullen
The August afternoon hangs dappled over the low Hammersmith terraces, and Piers Paul Read is speaking into a microphone. He is reflective, going over his whole life, from school up to his latest …
by Cathy Porter
“I must marry now or never! A wife at any price!” Count Tolstoy wrote in l862 in his diary shortly before he proposed to eighteen-year-old Sofia Behrs. Fifteen years older than she was, …
Part of the Photo Stories series co-edited by Clare Wigfall. Authors work from a photograph to produce a story of about 1000 words.
See Ellen just dripping all over this guy. This guy who seems …
by Cathy Porter
“I must marry now or never! A wife at any price!” Count Tolstoy wrote in l862 in his diary shortly before he proposed to eighteen-year-old Sofia Behrs. Fifteen years older than she was, …
