I’ve been looking forward to the new Adam Curtis documentary Bitter Lake for some time. He is a provocative, exciting and necessary filmmaker who has the rare capacity and courage to make challenging programmes that openly and directly challenge our ideological, economic and political systems. On the BBC.

A few weeks ago, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey hosted their third Golden Globes Awards, with much being made of their long-standing, real-life friendship in the lead up to the event (see here and herefor some examples). This made me think back to an article that I co-wrote with Karen Boyle in 2012 which looked at the depiction of same-sex friendship between Poehler and Fey’s characters in the film *Baby Mama *(McCullers,

As part of the AHRC project, ‘Technologies of Memory and Archival Regimes: war diaries afer the connective turn’ (ref. AH/L004212/1), I have spent the last four months at The National Archives in Kew (TNA).

*** *** Television’s Daily Bread There will be different reasons for why the routine of viewing television will momentarily leave our day-to-day lives. Major rituals and life events may require of us to turn it off, to be somewhere else, or we may consciously decide to have time away from the set, wherever and however that may be technologically constituted.  A family gathering; the death of a loved one;

As Robert Lindsay notes in his autobiography Letting Go , by the late 1980s, things weren’t looking so well for his career: following an difficult stint in the USA, where he had worked on the film Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool (1989), the actor who was known for roles such as Wolfie Smith in Citizen Smith (BBC1, 1977-1980) and had enjoyed success both in the West End and on Broadway, returned to Britain with little of that

One of my new year’s resolutions this year is to improve my work-life balance. It is with some irony, then, that I find myself finishing this blog on the second Sunday in January, particularly considering that I started writing it during my annual leave over the Christmas vacation.

I’ve never been a saint.  I’m sure if anyone wanted to get me on my past, they very well could. Bill Cosby, 1989 (Collins 141) The unconscious mind can be both friend and foe.  It sometimes is the source of strange and wondrous insights; it also can appear to be working against our own self-interest.

Video Playtime , Ann Gray’s account of the domestic use of the VCR in the 1980s, was one of the great cultural studies accounts to come out of early television studies. In describing and analysing ‘the gendering of a leisure technology’, Gray gave space for her respondents’ accounts of their changed viewing habits and analysed them sympathetically and shrewdly.

Towards the end of last year I had the privilege of taking part in a panel on LGBT characters in science fiction television at the BFI Southbank as part of their Days of Fear and Wonder season. Chaired by Emma Smart the panel—myself, Stacey Abbott and Ewan Kirkland—offered some thoughts on the topic and then took questions, largely from the audience.

… is the kind of television I ought to disapprove of. It is ‘drama run by the costume department,’ as Rupert Murdoch once said of the ruling-class fantasies of grandiose UK period fiction.

When Robin Williams died in August there was an outpouring of grief, disbelief and finally, celebration. While in recent years Williams’ television work may have been overshadowed by his film appearances (including academy award nominations and awards), it was the small screen with its continued intimacy, domesticity and interaction that showcased his talent following his death.