Author Archives: simon
Freedom vs Rights
A contribution to a conference, called ‘A Mirror Up To Nature’, on censorship and freedom of speech organised by Equity 30th November 2006 at The National Theatre I won’t speak for very long although I do notice that you have … Continue reading
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The social landlord with a secret weapon: his tenants
Ian Fife is 62 and always wears a small sailing cap. It started, he says, because his girlfriend likes to sunbathe and, since he’s pretty thin on top, he was getting burned. He is a property journalist for South Africa’s … Continue reading
Posted in Society, The Guardian
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Playing the race card belittles success stories
Simon Fanshawe on Leroy, 19. Tall, good looking, Leroy has ‘mus-cols’. He tried dealing drugs but decided it was not ‘worth dying for’. Now he is doing a part-time training course for young volunteers in peer mediation and conflict resolution … Continue reading
Posted in Society, The Guardian
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Bring back the polite state
Good manners have become unfashionable. It’s thought authoritarian to point out that someone’s behaviour is bad, that there is a right and a wrong way to do things. Being called judgmental is an accusation. There were good reasons for this. … Continue reading
Posted in Manners, Society, The Guardian
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Round and round the houses
He’s a Home Counties boy who flays the middle-classes from his base in Yorkshire, a shy man whose inner turmoil comes out in his plays, a comic writer of world renown – yet the critics are divided about his reputation. … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Celebrity Profiles, The Guardian
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Zoë Wanamaker
“More Vodka, please” goes up the shout. The shoes have come off. The feet are tucked under the star on the sofa in the press office of the National Theatre. The umpteenth liquorice roll-up has been smoked and as it’s … Continue reading
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Wit
Flying high on the ‘screaming ovations’ that greeted his American solo concert debut in Las Vegas in 1955, Noel Coward booked into a hospital for a check-up. The doctor advised less alcohol. Coward wrote in a letter “it is bad … Continue reading
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Victoria Wood
The first fifteen minutes of Victoria Wood’s first ever sit com, the self-explanatory ‘dinner ladies’ seems a terrible disappointment. You’ve been here before. You know what a Victoria Wood joke sounds like. Sex, net curtains and a Gypsy Cream. Two … Continue reading
Posted in Celebrity Profiles
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Stigwood
When Saturday Night Fever became a global epidemic in the late seventies it gave fat office workers, thin shop assistants, in fact wage slaves the world over a path to stardom in their own heads. White flares were their flight … Continue reading
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South African comedy
Sitting in a Jo’berg deli, eating the entire Jewish breakfast paraphernalia while simultaneously chain-smoking, is one of South Africa’s longest standing comics. His VW parked out side has “Mel Miller Live and Gatvol” painted down the side. “Gatvol” means “pissed … Continue reading
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