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…

A review of the recent Sherlock Holmes films and BBC TV series.

The King's Speech is book-ended by two speeches. The first is a disaster, a deeply humiliating experience for Prince Albert, Duke of York…

In The Writing on the Wall, Maggi Dawn sets about doing what John Stott called "double listening" – "it means that we’re called…

Vampires are currently one of the biggest phenomena in popular culture. They are central to hit television series like True Blood, Being…

‘You can live your life without limitations and become anyone you want to be.’ Disease and injury, ageing and ugliness, death…

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