The dwarves have all the best songs. Whether they are singing raucous ditties about smashing Bilbo’s best crockery or low, mournful…

James Bond has been in the spying business for such a long time that he really ought to be up for a long-service award. But the…

How can we be transformed through suffering? Surprisingly, the eighties cult film The Karate Kid offers some insights. If you're unfamiliar…

Vincent Van Gogh is now a solid fixture in our cultural vocabulary. I need only mention sunflowers or a bandaged ear to conjure up his life…

How do you begin to tell stories about a war which claimed more than fifteen million lives? For children's author Michael Morpurgo, the…

The world's only consulting detective steps into the 21st Century in the BBC series Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch portrays the titular…

I'm not sure exactly what makes someone a phenomenon, but anyone who has managed to win 62 music awards in two years and has produced a…

‘I don’t know if the story I want to tell you is entirely true,’ confesses the narrator at the opening of Michael…

There are many people who will have switched off during the first five minutes of Skins, E4’s notorious wild-child. The show is…