William Dawson

It's rare to find a comedy that genuinely loves its characters. Most comedies seem to thrive on humiliating their cast. Think about the painful bedroom antics of Friends, or the colliding egos of Arrested Development. Much rarer - perhaps because it's so hard to get right - is a comedy that finds humour in sympathy. The Good Place achieves this happy medium so effortlessly that you could be forgiven for overlooking how revolutionary it is. It's a show where you laugh with the

Just a quick update on a couple of things I’ve loved recently. GONE WITH THE WIND: I finally finished reading Margaret Mitchell’s epic. I thought it was brilliant. It surprised me because whereas it’s often held up to be the ultimate romantic saga, in many senses it’s actually an inversion of the traditional romance. The unforgettable Scarlet O’Hara has a completely different idea of who she is destined to be with than the reader. But Mitchell is very good at writing moments

I've just finished watching the BBC production of 'Parade's End', starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall - and I'm completely in love with it. I have to confess, I embarked upon it simply because it was roughly connected with the period that I was emulating in my writing and I thought that I might pick up a couple of ideas from it. But then I saw that the screenplay was written by Tom Stoppard, and I sat up and took notice. I'm a great fan of Stoppard's work, and here