This article first appeared on Reaction. Washington, History If there’s one thing that American TV channels do very well, it is making TV series about their presidents. I’ve written in previous columns about PBS America’s latest documentaries on Clinton, Bush and Re...
Let me tell you about my weekend. As you know, I don't take much time off, and in a sense part of this weekend has been a bit of a busman's holiday, since I'm ostensibly in North Devon to speak at the Appledore Book Festival. However, I have family here too, so I've taken the ...
This column appeared originally on Reaction. Me and My Penis, Channel 4 If you’re the sort of person who likes to see lots of willies on TV, you lucked out last Monday on Channel 4. It came on the back of (if you’ll pardon the expression) last year’s Channel 4 female equ...
Originally published on Reaction. The Fast Show: More Blooming Catchphrases, Gold Last Saturday, my partner and I celebrated 25 years together. What better way to spend the evening than to watch a two hour Fast Show documentary and retrospective? Who said romance is dead...
This article was originally published on Reaction.Life. Normal People – BBC3 & iPlayer “And now it’s time for BBC3 on BBC1”. Eight words which usually encourage me to change channel more quickly than Boris Johnson can execute a screeching U-Turn. Its programmes ...
Some of you may recall that back at the beginning of August The Observer did an interview with me on a passage on my book about an attempted rape I had experience in my twenties. On the back of that, a national newspaper commissioned me to write an 1800 word feature on the sub...
This article first appeared on Reaction.Life. Occupied, Netflix It is, nowadays, almost de rigueur to be a fan of Scandinavian dramas. First, there was The Killing, then Borgen, then The Bridge. When we heard last week that Borgen is to return for a further series, I cou...
This column first appeared on Reaction.Life A Podcast of One’s Own with Julia Gillard I’ve often wondered how former prime ministers and presidents cope with losing office. How does your brain adjust to being the most powerful person in the country one minute, and t...
When you're in a political hole, the best thing to do is stop digging. You collect your thoughts, then you devise a strategy to climb out of the hole. That's what Gavin Williamson should be doing now. He needs to do it quickly because that hole is about to treble in size when ...
In July a photographer called Richard Davenport emailed me asking if I would take part in a phot feature he was planning. Given the Edinburgh Fringe had been cancelled, he decided to take pictures of people who had been intending to perform in Edinburgh, but couldn't. And ...
If we lived in normal times, I would be in the middle of a book tour, speaking at literary festivals up and down the country, from Appledore to Ilkley. I had forty odd speaking engagements planned to publicise my book on the decline of public discourse, ‘Why Can’t We All Just ...
This article first appeared on Reaction.Life Full Disclosure podcast with James O’Brien, Global Radio If the title of the podcast if ‘Full Disclosure’ I’d better disclose that James O’Brien is a colleague of mine on LBC, and Global Radio are the publishers of my own podc...
By rights, I should be at the beginning of a run of ten shows at the Edinburgh Fringe. But it was cancelled this year, for obvious reasons. So I'm taking part in the digital fringe, with three of my ALL TALK shows on Zoom. They will take place at 1pm each Wednesday for the res...
Thursday was the official publication day for my book, WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG. I’ve done a whole host of media interviews over the last week talking about the book but the question I have most often been asked is this: Why did I write it? Well, it is down to tw...
This article was written for Reaction.Life. Haughey – The Charles Haughey Documentary (RTE, YouTube) One of the great delights of YouTube is that it contains a vast treasure trove of political documentaries, the existence of which is usually spread by word of mouth. A co...
This article first appeared in the Daily Telegraph. There’s nothing Westminster journalists like more than a process story that potentially involves one of their own. This week the Conservatives advertised for a new No 10 spokesperson, who will host a live, televised daily ...
Earlier this month I recorded an episode of Lisa Francesca Nand's BIG TRAVEL PODCAST, and it's out now on all podcast platforms. This is what the podcast blurb says. Quite how you can resist listening to it after reading this, I just don't know! A school trip to Commun...
This article was originally published on Reaction.Life. I wrote a new column each Friday on the site. The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, BBC2 As you will know, if you are a regular reader of this column, I’m a sucker for a person based biographical documentary. So whe...
I get a lot of emails from LBC listeners and For the Many podcast fans, but this one, from 22 year old Joseph Bryant*, was a corker. So I thought I'd share it with you. Hi Iain, I've just ordered a copy of your book from your website. I'm 22 and have just fini...
This article first appeared on Reaction. Hillary, Sky Documentaries There’s nothing quite like a multi-part documentary series on leading American politicians. Just a few weeks ago I wrote about the Amazon Prime series on Bill Clinton and George W Bush, they provided fr...