Thomas Sutcliffe

Tones of home: works by Paul Nash, like Bomber in the Corn, use muted colours to great effect

Tom Sutcliffe: The colour of muddy

The Week In Culture

Recently by Thomas Sutcliffe

Tom Sutcliffe: Rape should not just be an issue for women

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

I wonder whether the Haven rape centres will feel that they got value for money with the online opinion poll they commissioned to mark the 10th anniversary of the support service they offer for rape victims? On the one hand, "Wake Up To Rape", the report that resulted from the survey, did get quite a lot of coverage in the media – which is always part of the point of such operations. On the other hand, the findings appeared to suggest that social attitudes to rape remain hopelessly confused, despite decades of campaigning on the issue.

Tom Sutcliffe: Don't get cute with me

Friday, 12 February 2010

The Week In Culture

Tom Sutcliffe: I would rather not see my future, thanks

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

A bus may get us long before we get to where science told us we were going

Tom Sutcliffe: The mother of all villains

Friday, 5 February 2010

Mo'Nique is, apparently, a "lock" for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Having seen her performance in Precious I'm not inclined to disagree. If I was a voter myself I'd have considerable difficulty in shaking off the Vera Farmiga crush that has had me in its grip since I saw Up in The Air but I think even I might concede in the end. When Farmiga's on screen with George Clooney what you're interested in is the pleasure of a long rally – the lobs and the surprising backhands. It's a game for two players. When Mo'Nique turns up in a scene in Precious, though, the whole damn thing becomes a one-woman show, and while that might not offer the best definition of "support" as an actress, it should guarantee that she sticks in the mind when it comes time to fill in the voting forms. Mo'Nique has something else in her favour too. She – or rather Mary, the character she plays – is a monster. And in the right shape there's nothing we like more.

Tom Sutcliffe: Time to have confidence in the future

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

The great aphorist Ambrose Bierce defined an aphorism as "pre-digested wisdom" in his Devil's Dictionary – a blankly unaphoristic definition which contains more than a hint of self-criticism. He was right to be suspicious, with the memorability and neatness of aphorisms so often seducing us into forgetting everything that contradicts them. But sometimes you encounter an aphoristic phrasing of an idea that requires you to do all the digesting, so neatly does it encapsulate a much larger thought.

Tom Sutcliffe: Are you talking to me?

Friday, 29 January 2010

It's slightly odd, when you think about it, that we expect to be ignored in the theatre. We're the reason the damn thing is happening, after all, and yet in 99 cases out of 100, everyone involved pretends we're invisible. The curtain rises and the people on stage start talking to each other, or occasionally themselves, as if we're not there. And worse... if you make it too obvious that you are there, by taking an urgent phone call, say, they get absolutely bloody furious. "Who's paying the bills, pal?" you might be inclined to ask – but of course you never do, because our invisibility and our muteness is part of the contract.

Tom Sutcliffe: An age-old problem that affects us all

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

So what's it to be then? A "martini and a medal", Martin Amis's deliberately provocative shorthand for street corner euthanasia booths, or "flexible working" until we drop in the traces? Are Britain's old people a demographic time-bomb, or are they a resource that we can't afford to waste (or, more bluntly, just can't afford unless they chip in themselves)?