John Baker’s Blog

I’m not going to go on at length about the latest Mike Leigh film because he is one of my favourite directors and the film falls a long way short of his best work.
Sally Hawkins as Poppy is a primary-school teacher who is relentlessly cheerful. No negative thoughts or attitudes inhabit this thirty-year-old woman. She [...]

This play came to the York Theatre Royal via the West End and Broadway, and a few other places. It won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and garnered a host of positive critical reviews:
“Rollicking fun” The Times
“Dizzyingly entertaining” The Telegraph
“A joyous version of the Hitchcock classic” Sunday Times
So we were expecting [...]

From: Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
To: The citizens of the United States of America:
In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
The Queen will resume monarchical duties over all [...]

In The Stranger, Paul Constant writes about the perils and pleasures of chasing book thieves:
In my eight years working at an independent bookstore, I lost count of how many shoplifters I chased through the streets of Seattle while shouting “Drop the book!” I chased them down crowded pedestrian plazas in the afternoon, I chased them [...]