Articles by: Valerie Krips

'Coriolanus' (dir. Ralph Fiennes, 2011) and 'The Iron Lady' (dir. Phyllida Lloyd, 2011).'There is a world elsewhere', says the patrician Coriolanus when the plebeians' Tribunes banish him from Rome. Coriolanus, the central character in what is arguably Shakespeare's greatest tragedy is, whatever else, a man who must fight and fight again, literally, to be at peace with himself; his internal conflicts are among those that make Shakespeare a writer for today as much as yesterday.…

Review(s) of: Suffragette, directed by Sarah Gavron, 2015.

Crossover fiction: childlike wonder or infantalised culture?phenomenon: a thing that appears ... the cause of which is in question.Oxford English DictionaryThe Harry Potter phenomenon has reached its climax: the last film, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2', is undoubtedly playing in a cinema near you, probably on a couple of screens, in 2D and 3D, and in many sessions per day. In London, where the film had its premiere in July, fans slept…

Review(s) of: Frankenstein, by dir. Danny Boyle, British National Theatre production, 2011; Never let me go, by dir. Mark Romanek, 2011.

Review(s) of: Another year, by dir. Mike Leigh, 2010; The king's speech, by dir. Tom Hooper, 2010.

The Australian social imaginary, the way that 'people imagine their social existence ... and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie ... [their] expectations', to use Charles Taylor's definition, might well be in the process of some adjustment. By the time these words are in print, Mary McKillop, born in Fitzroy, Victoria, will have joined the company of those whose virtue has been proved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. She will…

Watching 'A Single Man' and 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'March was an instructive month in film. Interested filmgoers, having seen many of the films in Oscar contention, learned that realism has ousted fantasy: 'The Hurt Locker' won roundly (Best Film and Director, making Kathryn Bigelow the first women director to grasp the golden statuette) while the otherwise hotly-tipped Avatar had to content itself with Best Art Direction and Cinematography. And Colin Firth did not…

Review(s) of: The road, by John Hillcoat (dir.), 2009.

A. S. Byatt's 'The Children's Book' and J. K. Rowling.'Children in these families, at the end of the nineteenth century, were different from children before or after.' So writes A. S. Byatt in 'The Children's Book', her long 2009 novel spanning the years that saw the 19th century turn, and the Great War begin and end. The children she writes about come from a particular section of the British upper middle class, the Fabians and…

Objects, memory and two iconic British institutions. Anyone who has been watching W1A, currently airing on BBC First in Australia, will have some idea of the role the BBC plays in British life: it's a treasure, but sometimes it's possible to think that it is run by a bunch of lunatics. Who, for example, do they think they're kidding when they try to appeal to the young? Which of these young, presuming that they have…

Review(s) of: Anchor point, by Alice Robinson, Affirm Press, 2015.