Midwife Amie Wilson is running the Paris Marathon with her pal Sophie Webster to raise cash for this website’s official charity- Ammalife. It raises funds to save lives for pregnant mothers in developing countries. Here’s Amie’s latest report on the eve of the race. So we arrived safely in Paris, me from East Midlands…
Richard Lutz looks at the week ahead on the box for movies Screengrab comes to you this week from Scotland. And it’s indeed a pleasure to report that along with heather and tartan, this place also has television. So, it is a complete and unalloyed pleasure to go through the listings and send you my…
This Sunday is the centenary of the sinking of The Titanic. But for Richard Lutz, it’s the 100th anniversary of something else. You can’t avoid it. It is everywhere. The Titanic industry is at full throttle and bursts over the horizon on the fifteenth of this month- a hundred years ago the passenger liner sank.…
British directors take precedence in this week’s tv schedules. And one name dominates, according to Richard Lutz Someone at Channel 4 likes Alfred Hitchcock. Starting on Tuesday, each afternoon has one of his films and they range from good to bad to blissfully unknown. On Tuesday we kick off with Rear Window (Tues,…
Tv news station Sky has admitted it hacked into emails for a story…but it was in the public interest. The public what? asks Richard Lutz Earlier this week James Murdoch left the board of Sky. He said he didn’t want his other troubles with creepy News of the World and the deluded and deranged Sun…
When was the last time you just sat and listened to music? Simply sat there and listened. Sheilagh Matheson went to a place where you can do just that.
Amie Wilson works in Birmingham as a midwife. But she is also getting ready for the Paris Marathon to raise cash for Ammalife
by Richard Lutz The Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei today was banned from videoing himself at home and posting it on a website. Whether he is doing this for artistic reasons- a kind of self imposed voyeur’s piece de resistance– or whether he is doing it in protest against state snooping- a real piece of…
from our staff A senior principal for a Birmingham college has backed the city based Ammalife medical campaign. Joseph Chamberlain College raised more than £366 for the charity which works worldwide to prevent maternal deaths during pregnancy or childbirth. The money was raised by students who are all learning English at the college. Many are…
from Richard Lutz There’s a great Hollywood story about the final shot in that John Wayne/John Ford classic The Quiet Man (Mon; Ch4, 12.45) . It goes like this: In the last scene, Wayne and his co-star Maureen O’Hara stand on top of a sunny knoll after all the Irish brawling, drinking and mayhem.…
David Cameron was ‘a bit busy’ and didn’t make it to The Commons yesterday to defend his party’s behaviour over the cash for access scandal. Richard Lutz has this to say: So, let me get it straight. The Conservatives get radical over allowing Prime Ministerial access for six figure sums. They get caught red handed…
by Richard Lutz Let’s start at the bottom and, don’t fret, some people like bottoms. To put it more succinctly: what’s on the satchannel Syfy this week? Well, in one 24 hour burst, you have such classics as Princess of Mars (Wed; 3.00pm) Mongolian Death Worm (Wed; 23.00), and, the most intriguing, Sharktopus (Thurs; 04.00).…
As the bodies of six UK soldiers are repatriated to Britain, Richard Lutz takes a look at a murderous tragedy where the Afghani dead are forgotten and the alleged killer cast as victim No sooner do they arrest the US soldier who slaughtered 16 Afghanis then the media propaganda war begins. And it isn’t subtle.…
A good week for setting the record button, putting the feet up and catching some movies on the small screen, says Richard Lutz. Let’s kick off with today (Sunday) and I have to repeat that last year’s best film Winter’s Bone (Sun; Sky Arts1, 22.00 and other times) is the one to catch. It’s about…
This Saturday sees the Symphony Hall performance of EQUINOX- a rare celebration of the rich depth of this region’s cultural heritage.
A critic once famously said Waiting for Godot is about ‘nothing happening…twice’
Only a third the way into the Nanci Griffith set in Birmingham, and she announces she is ill and leaves the stage….
by Richard Lutz Screengrab opens this week with a five star heads up for Cool Hand Luke (TCM; Thurs, 11.20pm) Now, here’s a film that really changed things. It was a 1960’s story about rebellion – but not in the counter culture/long hair/smoking pot kind of way. It was the slowburn truculence of Paul…
by Richard Lutz The faces look out from the papers, the web, the tv. Eyes are stern, jaws set. These are the dead men, soldiers who died in Afghanistan this past week. Their families and friends have been scarred for life by the loss of someone they knew. That much is clear. What becomes…
Two pleasant things flow from Wales into Birmingham. One is water. The other is music from Welsh National Opera.
Richard Lutz checks out the runners and riders this week on the box.
Richard Lutz reckons going to see Lenny Henry via a tv link is strange in a lot of different ways.
By Richard Lutz Steve comes to my house – to my drive actually – to carry out essential body work on my 11 year old Honda. Someone ripped a mega-chunk out of it in a car park. From the damage it looks as if an SUV the size of a spaceship savaged it. Steve goes…
On the day that the Oscars are given their final brush up, Richard Lutz offers up the latest on tv movies
Richard Lutz checks out the best and quirkiest tv movies on the box this week If you plunder the tv listings over the weekend, there are some movie gems ready to enjoy. Movie of the week is Johnny Guitar. (Wed Ch4, 13.00). It has Sterling Hayden (the bad cop from Godfather) in his blonde youthful …
Richard Lutz takes a look at the Murdoch debacle. And finds rot at the top Like a snake that devours its own tail, Rupert Murdoch is gobbling down the very troops that helped build his tawdry UK media empire. His ‘independent’ investigators, called the Management and Standards Committee, have handed over name after name of…
Richard Lutz looks at those big mega-strand US tv shows and tries to figure out which is best.
Richard Lutz considers how the law needs to start sprinting to catch up with the modern world of on-line thought dumps.
Richard Lutz sits down to see a play that still gets them hot under the collar 4 centuries on The Taming of the Shrew Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford The Taming of the Shrew is one of those Shakespeare plays that enrages people still today. How can it sit comfortably when a guy (Petruchio) bullies, pesters,…
Richard Lutz sits down to a real corker at the University of Warwick Arts Centre