NS Culture

With Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker about to make her debut on Sunday, @thejimsmith looks back at how previous Doctors debuts have been handled and received: newstatesman.com/culture/tv-rad…

The template for Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born bestows all dramatic opportunities on to the male role. newstatesman.com/culture/film/2…

In the National’s Antony and Cleopatra, there seems to be little desire to use the play as a mirror to today’s world, writes @helenlewis. Instead, the production takes the story on its own terms. newstatesman.com/culture/music-…

Like Waltz with Bashir, the film repackages the familiar in a way that overcomes compassion fatigue. newstatesman.com/culture/film/2…

Clive James, Tom Stoppard and Julian Barnes talked – and @Tom_Gatti listened newstatesman.com/culture/books/…

Ribera got as close to pain as he could so that it doesn’t just shout from his paintings, but screams. Michael Prodger on the visceral art of Jusepe de Ribera: newstatesman.com/culture/art-de…

Simon Armitage’s translation of a 600-year-old poem is intercut with clips of Madeleine McCann’s father, to devastating effect. newstatesman.com/culture/tv-rad…

"A writer must be a student of life, and not the best student either, since we must never graduate from this school, but keep asking the most simple, the most fundamental and the most difficult questions." @Elif_Safak on why the novel matters: newstatesman.com/culture/books/…

“All my life I’ve wanted to write a great villain, but a woman.” Sarah Perry tells @annaleszkie about ghosts, suffering pain, dreaming of Bohemia, and her novel Melmoth: newstatesman.com/culture/books/…

In Farther and Sun: A Dyslexic Road Trip the filmmaker Richard Macer and his 11-year-old son, Arthur, set out to discover whether it might be outdated to think of dyslexia only as a disability, writes @MsRachelCooke newstatesman.com/culture/tv-rad…

A real engagement with black history is essential, says @kehinde_andrews. Unfortunately Black History Month has proved the wrong vehicle for that ambition newstatesman.com/politics/educa…

.@Anoosh_C's definitive ranking of the level of Apprenticeness of this year’s Apprentice candidates: newstatesman.com/culture/tv-rad…

GQ's Johnny Depp cover has been deliberately designed to give the accusations made against Depp an edge of rebellion, writes @annaleszkie. He’s not an alleged abuser; he’s an “outlaw”. newstatesman.com/culture/film/2…

The NS Q&A with @Beathhigh: On Joe 90, Muriel Spark and John Smith newstatesman.com/culture/qa/201…

A new @srslypod episode! @annaleszkie & @c_crampton on #KillingEve, Crazy Rich Asians, and Shane Dawson's Jeffree Star series: aca.st/26ea81

In Poland, Olga Tokarczuk has been the subject of death threats by nationalists. newstatesman.com/culture/books/…

"A poem from the Voronezh Notebooks", by Osip Mandelstam newstatesman.com/2018/09/poem-v…

Matilda is a reminder that the family we choose can be more valuable than the one we were born into, writes @LouisStaples newstatesman.com/culture/books/…

Hitchens relies on a handful of off-beam, eccentric studies of prewar diplomacy for his new work, The Phoney Victory: The World War II Delusion. newstatesman.com/Peter-Hitchens…

From an epic life of Nietzsche to Lily Allen’s brutally honest memoir, the big new releases, reviewed: newstatesman.com/culture/books/…