Lost in Transmutation: Literature and film

University classes and glass-eyed professors have long pondered the significance and meaning of the word ‘literature’. The most forthcoming definition is that offered, as always, by the Oxford English Dictionary: “Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit.” But what can this definition reveal to us about film, and how much the form of literature has changed, especially when looking at the inception of the auteur’s contribution? Could a film be termed literature? Perhaps but perhaps not.

Doing Feminism: Chatting About the Unspeakable With Laurie Penny

On vile internet comments, the pros of perversion, and the bullyboys of the British press.

At 27, Laurie Penny spent a massive amount of time thinking and writing about the reasons hatred towards people who don’t conform is tolerated in the UK. Her articles appear in the New Statesman, Guardian, Independent, and Vice; her blog Penny Red was short-listed for the Orwell Prize and she tweets to over 93,000 followers. In conversation, she’s a charismatic person with a great sense of humour and a wealth of knowledge about the complexities gender, class and race in modern Britain.

Go see My Ragga Journey - plus a whole bunch more Camden Fringe reviews

Camden Fringe Festival - A metric arseload of previews

The Camden Fringe Festival takes place from the 2nd to the 29th of August. Illustration by Alan Hindle

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Several million years ago some lucky monkey managed to get its grasping, recently be-thumbed hands on a dead stegosaurus. It doesn’t matter if the beast was killed by a doughty warrior with a pointy stick, or was found at the bottom of a steep cliff, when it was finally dragged it back to the tribe the ape began telling everybody embellished tales of catching dinner. As the stegosaurus turned slowly on a very large spit (the wheel not yet being invented, but every cave already having a rotisserie barbecue in the garden) theatre was invented. Before music, painting, literature, and psychiatry there was theatre, the first art form. And the grilling of fine meats.

Fringe Theatre Festivals are, I think, a modern approximation to that first exhilarating experience of telling and hearing a story. The idea is freshly caught, prepared in short order and presented still fairly raw- some parts possibly undercooked, some burned, but much is perfect- sizzling and spitting mouthwatering juices.

London agenda for Wednesday 1 December