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The hugely successful writer Dan Brown advises on ideas, locations, research, suspense and dialogue. Photograph: Juan Naharro Gimenez/WireImage Want to be a bestselling author? Get up at 4am
  • Books
  • November 20, 2018, 05:00

You don’t need an original idea, says bestseller Dan Brown, just a hero, a contract and ‘a crucible’

Switched-On Bach: How a transgender synth pioneer changed music Switched-On Bach: How a transgender synth pioneer changed music
  • Music
  • Mark Graham
  • November 20, 2018, 05:00

Wendy Carlos’s 1968 album of Bach music for Moog synthesiser brought electronic music into the mainstream and influenced artists from Giorgio Moroder to Daft Punk

Hero review: One of the oldest tales gets the freshest possible expression Hero review: One of the oldest tales gets the freshest possible expression
  • Stage
  • Peter Crawley
  • November 20, 2018, 12:34

The hero of Ken Rogan’s excellent debut is a warrior on the pitch but lost at sea in matters of the heart

Meet the ‘real’ John Lewis, star of Twitter’s Christmas ad Meet the ‘real’ John Lewis, star of Twitter’s Christmas ad
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Mark Sweney
  • November 20, 2018, 09:10

US lecturer receives more than 50,000 tweets a year meant for the British retailer

A mythical, dreamy view of the Blasket Islands A mythical, dreamy view of the Blasket Islands
  • Art & Design
  • Aidan Dunne
  • November 20, 2018, 05:00

Iranian artist Atoosa Pour Hosseini reimagines the Co Kerry islands in the lyrical ‘Kinetics in Blue’

Hold the maggots: can ‘I’m a Celebrity’ survive the vegan era? Hold the maggots: can ‘I’m a Celebrity’ survive the vegan era?
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Stuart Heritage
  • November 20, 2018, 09:41

This year’s trio of vegans could mark the end for the show’s crueller bushtucker trials

Muted drama ventures inside the mind of homeowner who killed an Irish Traveller Muted drama ventures inside the mind of homeowner who killed an Irish Traveller
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Peter Crawley
  • November 19, 2018, 14:26

TV review: ‘The Interrogation of Tony Martin’ explores a shooting in Norfolk

Aim of ‘I’m a Celebrity’ 2018: Convince Dec he is still hilarious without Ant Aim of ‘I’m a Celebrity’ 2018: Convince Dec he is still hilarious without Ant
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Peter Crawley
  • November 19, 2018, 10:55

Holly Willoughby – Ant McPartlin’s replacement for series 18 – is not allowed to be funny

There’s a buzz about Belfast, the ultimate city break on your doorstep There’s a buzz about Belfast, the ultimate city break on your doorstep
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Who is the best cinema Santa Claus of them all? Who is the best cinema Santa Claus of them all?
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • November 19, 2018, 10:46

There has been a stunning variety of screen Santas. But one outshines them all

Latest Film

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: terrible, but features an eight-year-old Pia Zadora as a Martian child Who is the best cinema Santa Claus of them all?
“Obviously on set you can’t have real arrows flying around.” Above, Taron Egerton with Jamie Foxx in Robin Hood Taron Egerton: ‘You have to bet on yourself in this game’
‘Something in The Princess Bride affects people,” said Goldman William Goldman, screenwriter who insisted ‘Nobody knows anything’ dies at 87
  • Six of the best films to see this weekend
  • The movie quiz: Who has not directed Meryl Streep to an Oscar?

Film Reviews

Taron Egerton as Robin Hood. The outlaw from the English midlands talks pure Estuary. Photograph: Larry Horricks/Lionsgate Robin Hood

 
Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, and Olivia Ancona in Suspiria (2018) Suspiria

 
Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda in the 1980 film 9 to 5. Photograph: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock 9 to 5

 
Steven Gerrard: a man out of step with the mercenary, opportunistic world of contemporary football? Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images Make Us Dream

 

Latest Music

Wendy Carlos: At the time ‘Switched-On Bach’ was released, the composer was six months into transgender hormone therapy, and still known as Carlos. Photograph: GAB Archive/Redferns Switched-On Bach: How a transgender synth pioneer changed music

Wendy Carlos’s 1968 album of Bach music for Moog synthesiser brought electronic music into the mainstream and influenced artists from Giorgio Moroder to Daft Punk

Shame are wary of being tagged a “political” band. Photograph: Jordan Hughes Charlie Steen of Shame: ‘Touring eventually broke my mind’
Matthew Crossan, flanked by his Touts bandmates: “Exile and The Stones in general have taught me more than I could put into words.” This Album Changed My Life: The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main St. (1972)
  • Gavin Bryars: ‘I haven’t reached 100 yet, so I’m still relatively young’
  • Florence drama and three nights of Interpol intrigue

Album Reviews

The Good, The Bad & The Queen: Merrie Land

 
Mumford & Sons: Delta

 
Gerry O'Connor: Last Night's Joy

 
Mark Knopfler: Down The Road Wherever

 
Ryley Walker: The Lillywhite Sessions

 
Imagine Dragons: Origins

 

Latest Books

Eugene McCabe on Death and Nightingales: The novel was conceived by a story/myth I was told by John Collins who worked for us occasionally in our garden. The novel is dedicated to him. Photograph: Pat Langan Eugene McCabe: Border chronicler, universal storyteller

As his ‘Death and Nightingales’ comes to our screens, the author talks to Adrienne Leavy

Section of painting of Battle of Ballynahinch (1798) by Thomas Robinson How to write a history of forgetting: did Ulster Protestants fear to speak of ’98?
Donal O’Kelly in ‘Bat The Father Rabbit The Son’ in 2018. Photograph: Al Craig Donal O’Kelly on 30 years of ‘Bat The Father Rabbit The Son’
  • Want to be a bestselling author? Get up at 4am
  • International Dublin Literary Award: 10 Irish books on 2019 longlist

Book Reviews

Twelve Thousand Days: A memoir nobody would want to write
A Radical History of the World review: Seeking a steampunk revolution
Becoming by Michelle Obama review: a highflying outsider’s view
A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley: The new ‘Stoner’?

TV & Radio

I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here: the Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo found one of last year’s bushtucker trials hard to stomach. Photograph: ITV Hold the maggots: can ‘I’m a Celebrity’ survive the vegan era?

This year’s trio of vegans could mark the end for the show’s crueller bushtucker trials

The “real” John Lewis: the US academic receives 50,000 tweets a year meant for the British department--store chain Meet the ‘real’ John Lewis, star of Twitter’s Christmas ad
Paranoid, belligerent Tony Martin, played by Steve Pemberton Muted drama ventures inside the mind of homeowner who killed an Irish Traveller
  • Aim of ‘I’m a Celebrity’ 2018: Convince Dec he is still hilarious without Ant
  • 12 of the best shows on TV this week

Stage

Hero: Daithí Mac Suibhne is absorbing as John Smithy, whose name slyly puts him somewhere between Everyman and a nobody Hero review: One of the oldest tales gets the freshest possible expression

The hero of Ken Rogan’s excellent debut is a warrior on the pitch but lost at sea in matters of the heart

Woman Undone: a familiar trajectory of abuse, self-medication, self-harm and, eventually, recovery Woman Undone review: Mary Coughlan’s acts of creation and destruction
Gig of the Week: The Great Gatsby is one marvellous party
  • This week’s theatre highlights
  • The School Days of Thaddeus K review: An elegant depiction of a dismal time

Art & Design

Pour Hosseini’s protagonist, a wary, restless hybrid creature wearing a bird of prey face mask and the tattered remnants of a gown A mythical, dreamy view of the Blasket Islands

Iranian artist Atoosa Pour Hosseini reimagines the Co Kerry islands in the lyrical ‘Kinetics in Blue’

On of the phpotographs that for part of My Magnetic North, by Gary Coyle Art in Focus: My Magnetic North, Gary Coyle
Father and son: part of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting The Swing, and on the set of the Jean Renoir film A Day in the Country. Original photographs courtesy Musée d’Orsay and Centre Pompidou Lasting impression: Matching Renoir’s films with his father’s masterpieces
  • Ruth Medjber: ‘I don’t need a therapist, because I have a camera’
  • Rolling Stones spent ‘ages’ admiring National Gallery’s Caravaggio, says President

Unthinkable

Muslim praying in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Islam has ‘given rise to remarkably free societies as well as depressingly intolerant ones’. Photograph: AP/Muhammed Muheisen What can the West learn from the rest?

Unthinkable: Borrowing foreign ideas can expand our thinking, says Julian Baggini

‘My position is to recommend that people consider parenting a child with Down syndrome, if given the opportunity’. Photograph: iStock Is economics corrupting our idea of human worth?
Angry bird: social media incentivises conflict over constructive dialogue. Photograph: Reuters Is it time to cut back on criticism?
  • What will replace ‘western civilisation’?
  • A ‘third way’ of looking at religion

Michael Viney's Another Life

Illustration: Michael Viney Poisoned and preyless: obstacles to rewilding Ireland with eagles

Restoring the golden eagle to the west has found the limits to bringing back a carnivore

“Like our neighbours, we once depended wholly on the stream, piped to the house by gravity from one of its higher pools.” Nature takes refuge as drought dries the landscape
“The view from the top balcony can be sublime.” Illustration: Michael Viney Clifftops have given me some of the high point of my life
  • For peat’s sake, our uplands need rain – just not too much at once
  • Michael Viney: The beauty of weeping beeches

Heritage

Poulnabrone dolmen in Co Clare. Photograph: iStock Have you been to ‘Queen Maeve’s Vulva’? Ireland’s oddest placenames

We can reclaim Ballypitmave, and thousands of other names, or let them fossilise

Theresa May gives a statement at Downing Street. It is easier to keep pretending that, if only May had stuck it to the Europeans in the negotiations, the perfect have-cake/eat-cake Brexit would have been delivered. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Fintan O’Toole: Brexit ultras haven’t the guts to do the only logical thing
The restaurant at Dublin Airport. Photograph: Dermot Barry When Dublin Airport got a space-age restaurant
  • Dublin city centre flats complexes to be demolished to allow for 'decent modern accommodation'
  • Armistice Day: The forgotten Sligo men who never came home from the war

Treibh

An Somme. grianghraf: aidan crawley/the irish times Iarmhar an uafáis

Is cóir cuimhneamh ar na mairbh ach is ceart ceist a chur cén fáth ar maraíodh iad?

Ag saothrú léi i ngort na filíochta
An chéad lá ar scoil le Percy Péacóg agus a chairde
  • Beo idir tonnta dorcha an Gheimhridh
  • Seó mór na Gaeltachta, Aisling?, ar camchuairt

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Most Read in Culture

1 Taron Egerton as Robin Hood. The outlaw from the English midlands talks pure Estuary. Photograph: Larry Horricks/Lionsgate Robin Hood: Idiotic film can’t even get its absurdities right
2 The hugely successful writer Dan Brown advises on ideas, locations, research, suspense and dialogue. Photograph: Juan Naharro Gimenez/WireImage Want to be a bestselling author? Get up at 4am
3 Wendy Carlos: At the time ‘Switched-On Bach’ was released, the composer was six months into transgender hormone therapy, and still known as Carlos. Photograph: GAB Archive/Redferns Switched-On Bach: How a transgender synth pioneer changed music
4 Poulnabrone dolmen in Co Clare. Photograph: iStock Have you been to ‘Queen Maeve’s Vulva’? Ireland’s oddest placenames
5 Roxy Jacenko’s book bills itself as a ‘no-bullshit guide to PR, social media and building your brand’ ‘Never fails to disappoint’: Book pulped after cover misprint
6 Explosive: Friedrich Nietzsche. Photograph: Culture Club/Getty Images I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche review: A gripping read
7 Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson can do nothing with material that has become worse with each installment. Fifty Shades Freed: About as sexy as a 1990s ice-cream ad
8 “I’ve never done it with a girl before,” Dec Donnelly says to new co-host Holly Willoughby Aim of ‘I’m a Celebrity’ 2018: Convince Dec he is still hilarious without Ant
9 The 102 best films to watch on Netflix
10 Pour Hosseini’s protagonist, a wary, restless hybrid creature wearing a bird of prey face mask and the tattered remnants of a gown A mythical, dreamy view of the Blasket Islands
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Theresa May gives a statement at Downing Street. It is easier to keep pretending that, if only May had stuck it to the Europeans in the negotiations, the perfect have-cake/eat-cake Brexit would have been delivered. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Fintan O’Toole: Brexit ultras haven’t the guts to do the only logical thing
(Original Caption) 'Germany: World War I Armistice: Officers celebrate at captured German canteen.' In reality, the industrial nature of the slaughter destroyed all the notions of individual heroism and chivalry. Fintan O’Toole: The first World War is still being fought
Leo Varadkar is hoisted on shoulders after being elected as leader of Fine Gael at the Mansion House, Dublin. File photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times ‘Leo Varadkar: A Very Modern Taoiseach’ is shallow, flimsy and exaggerated

On My Culture Radar

Soak: On My Culture Radar Soak: On My Culture Radar

Singer-songwriter on Jack Coulter’s paintings and why ‘Atypical’ strikes a chord

Lisa Harding: “handles a profoundly difficult issue with absolute care and multitudes of heart”
The Book Club Click to join in the discussion about this month's book, Harvesting by Lisa Harding
 
Shelved: a selection of books by Irish women writers. Might some of these names figure in the final 12?
Women writers Putting Irish women writers back in the picture
 

Culture Videos

Robin Hood - official trailer2:23 Robin Hood - official trailer
John Lewis release 2018 Christmas advert 2:20 John Lewis release 2018 Christmas advert
Whistleblower: 'That's the tree I was going to hang myself from'0:39 Whistleblower: 'That's the tree I was going to hang myself from'
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: official trailer 1:50 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: official trailer

Galleries

Bono and Adam Clayton on stage... Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times In pictures: U2 at 3Arena, Dublin
Photograph: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker In Pictures: U2 live in Belfast
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