by Leo Kent

For an artist who paved the way for Abstract Expressionism in America, Armenian born Arshile Gorky should be more of a household name today. Hopefully this will be rectified in some small …

by Jemimah Steinfeld

One of the most memorable lines in classic prison drama The Shawshank Redemption is when Tim Robbins’ character, Andy Dufrasne avers: “The funny thing is – on the outside, I was an honest …

by Dasha Afanasieva

Robin Norton-Hale’s production of Puccini’s La Bohème is not really opera as we know it. It’s cheap, it’s in a pub and it’s accompanied by a piano. The whole thing feels very …

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 …

by Maya de Paula Hanika
The rise in popularity of the short story in this country is welcome news I’m sure to the readers of Notes from the Underground. Previously a neglected, predominantly American medium reserved …

by Gabriella Apicella
When I’m told how to watch a film, I tend to think that the movie in question is probably best avoided.  Certainly if you scout around, you will see that Jim Jarmusch’s latest movie, …

by Gabriella Apicella

I don’t understand guys too well. Or the alpha-male type of guy anyway. They baffle me – as I’m assured women baffle men.  Not only in the ways they relate to me, …

by Gabriella Apicella

It’s raining outside. Underneath a backstreet record store, a crowd gathers in front of a small stage. As the minutes tick by, expectation mounts. A softly spoken silver …

by Hannah Gilkes

In 1995 Hanif Kureishi looked back and saw the beginnings of a trend that was to prove prophetic. The Black Album follows the young Shahid from Kent as he starts university in London, …

by Leo Kent

Both Gaudier and Gill befriended and were heavily influenced by the innovative and progressive Epstein and all three can be regarded as pioneers of modern art through their radical creations. …

by Miguel Cullen
The truest sense of what is real and what is fake can be gleaned, as anyone who had an awkward moment making conversation with trick or treaters knows, from the crystalline perspective of …

by Gabriella Apicella
In recent years, Halloween has become sanitised by greetings cards companies into a cheap, plasticated cliché, and the myths, fables and sacred traditions that were once observed at this time of year are …

by Tom Fraser

Colin Jones’ new exhibition of photographs invites viewers to hit the road, eavesdrop on recording sessions and share downtime with one of rock’s most influential acts. 

by Gabriella Apicella

City of Life and Death is set in Nanking in 1937 during the infamous occupation of the then Chinese capital by the Japanese army towards the end of the war between the two …

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, …

by Adam Smith

It’s grim up north. And Jacob Polley knows it. He opens his debut novel opens with the sentence: “Town stinks.” Chris, the novel’s 14-year-old narrator, then elaborates on the odour’s composition, perfectly and …

by Octavia Morris
Beautiful Losers is a documentary film about the art movement of the same name [ripped off the Leonard Cohen novel] formed around a handful of talented underdogs who found each other at …

by Gabriella Apicella
The average cost of a Hollywood blockbuster is now up to around $106 million. Low-budget movie Slumdog Millionaire cost $15million. The Blair Witch Project cost $22,000. Now, I’m not wishing to sound completely …

by William Dorsey
Aubin and Wills, it turns out, is Jack Wills for yuppies, or whatever is the Noughtie’s equivalent of a yuppie. Gone are the stripy polo shirts – no, wait, they’re still there, but …

by Gabriella Apicella

The premise for this movie is compelling: a wife, unable to conceive naturally with her husband, has a one-night-stand with another man and falls pregnant. However, the young man becomes dangerously obsessed …