James Martin Charlton
@jmcfire.bsky.social
"...a poet of the tower blocks" - What's on. Theatre 🎭 and Film 🎬, Academic 📚. Author of Fat Souls, Divine Vision. Views my own. https://linktr.ee/jmcfire
Watching the first episode of 70s sitcom Lord Tramp, which demonstrates at least that the failures of the past are as egregiously awful as the failures of the present. Joan Sims is wasted.
November 28, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Watching the first episode of 70s sitcom Lord Tramp, which demonstrates at least that the failures of the past are as egregiously awful as the failures of the present. Joan Sims is wasted.
A day at the BFI Archive studying Talbot Rothwell Carry On drafts. Fascinating to see his process. A master of structure - arrived at in first draft - his rewrites were mostly tightening endings and expanding/improving dialogues.
November 27, 2025 at 5:15 PM
A day at the BFI Archive studying Talbot Rothwell Carry On drafts. Fascinating to see his process. A master of structure - arrived at in first draft - his rewrites were mostly tightening endings and expanding/improving dialogues.
My third time at Rough and Rowdy Ways, as Bob Dylan slowly but surely slips from view behind the piano, behind the music, but the voice is still strong.
November 7, 2025 at 11:03 PM
My third time at Rough and Rowdy Ways, as Bob Dylan slowly but surely slips from view behind the piano, behind the music, but the voice is still strong.
In my new Substack, I take a peek at Inside No. 9, the stage version. I found something part Grand Guignol, part variety show, and wholly what the fans expect.
Link 👇
Link 👇
November 5, 2025 at 9:38 PM
In my new Substack, I take a peek at Inside No. 9, the stage version. I found something part Grand Guignol, part variety show, and wholly what the fans expect.
Link 👇
Link 👇
Saw the Young Vic’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. A flawed but fascinating revival that emphasises Orton’s comedy's themes of exploitation, vulnerability, and sin.
Full thoughts 👇
Full thoughts 👇
October 26, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Saw the Young Vic’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. A flawed but fascinating revival that emphasises Orton’s comedy's themes of exploitation, vulnerability, and sin.
Full thoughts 👇
Full thoughts 👇
How enormously sad. Their collaboration, especially on the first 3 Soft Cell albums, was immeasurably important to so many of us. RIP Dave Ball.
October 23, 2025 at 1:22 PM
How enormously sad. Their collaboration, especially on the first 3 Soft Cell albums, was immeasurably important to so many of us. RIP Dave Ball.
New Substack: Breaking Whitemore’s Code
Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code offers an example of a secular saint’s play. A new epilogue turns its quiet hagiography into noisy sermonising – and reveals much about contemporary sanctity, and sanctimoniousness.
Link 👇
Link 👇
October 13, 2025 at 1:56 PM
New Substack: Breaking Whitemore’s Code
Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code offers an example of a secular saint’s play. A new epilogue turns its quiet hagiography into noisy sermonising – and reveals much about contemporary sanctity, and sanctimoniousness.
Link 👇
Link 👇
I highly recommend Bijan Omrani's God is an Englishman, a far reaching survey on what Christianity has done for us, and what it might still potentially do.
Fuller thoughts linked 👇
Fuller thoughts linked 👇
October 13, 2025 at 9:59 AM
I highly recommend Bijan Omrani's God is an Englishman, a far reaching survey on what Christianity has done for us, and what it might still potentially do.
Fuller thoughts linked 👇
Fuller thoughts linked 👇
Not lovely Diane Keaton! Sublimely funny in Woody Allen films, heartbreaking as Kay in The Godfather films, a feisty Louise Bryant in Reds. Always wonderful in everything. RIP.
October 11, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Not lovely Diane Keaton! Sublimely funny in Woody Allen films, heartbreaking as Kay in The Godfather films, a feisty Louise Bryant in Reds. Always wonderful in everything. RIP.
Substack: The Path to Dachau. The first in an occasional series of archive posts from previous blogs, this piece of travel writing tells of a visit I made to Dachau in 2010.
Link 👇
Link 👇
October 7, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Substack: The Path to Dachau. The first in an occasional series of archive posts from previous blogs, this piece of travel writing tells of a visit I made to Dachau in 2010.
Link 👇
Link 👇
John Woodvine was Malvolio in the first Shakespeare I ever saw on stage, an RSC Twelfth Night in 1980. A wonderful performance, my classmates and I’s sides ached with laughter. I am eternally grateful to him for that Induction. RIP.
October 6, 2025 at 2:44 PM
John Woodvine was Malvolio in the first Shakespeare I ever saw on stage, an RSC Twelfth Night in 1980. A wonderful performance, my classmates and I’s sides ached with laughter. I am eternally grateful to him for that Induction. RIP.
Troilus and Cressida at Shakespeare's Globe is disappointing staging that leans too broad, but almost worth seeing for Samantha Spiro’s inspired Patroclus.
Link 👇
Link 👇
October 2, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Troilus and Cressida at Shakespeare's Globe is disappointing staging that leans too broad, but almost worth seeing for Samantha Spiro’s inspired Patroclus.
Link 👇
Link 👇
I know polls and it’s a way off and all that. But I rarely see anyone engaging with the enormity of what’s happening (outside of the right wing commentariat). I reckon it’ll take a bloody miracle to stop Reform forming the next government.
September 25, 2025 at 1:38 PM
I know polls and it’s a way off and all that. But I rarely see anyone engaging with the enormity of what’s happening (outside of the right wing commentariat). I reckon it’ll take a bloody miracle to stop Reform forming the next government.
New Substack: Dumb Enough to Actually Try It. Free speech again, this time on the ugly online celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s death. The issue isn’t going away.
Link 👇
Link 👇
September 23, 2025 at 3:55 PM
New Substack: Dumb Enough to Actually Try It. Free speech again, this time on the ugly online celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s death. The issue isn’t going away.
Link 👇
Link 👇
I wish this “poet” had knocked on my door when I was living in a council estate. I’d have given him what for about his rotten verse devoid of the figurative.
September 17, 2025 at 11:04 AM
I wish this “poet” had knocked on my door when I was living in a council estate. I’d have given him what for about his rotten verse devoid of the figurative.
"And just like that, the villagers saw their so-called Enlightenment vanish, as if it were no more than a will-o’-the-wisp. The villagers shrank from it, clutching again at the ways they now felt they should never have forsaken."
🔖
🔖
September 10, 2025 at 1:09 PM
"And just like that, the villagers saw their so-called Enlightenment vanish, as if it were no more than a will-o’-the-wisp. The villagers shrank from it, clutching again at the ways they now felt they should never have forsaken."
🔖
🔖
I’m at the bfi Southbank for the Orton TV plays. It is already, as JO himself might say, “full of types.”
September 7, 2025 at 4:01 PM
I’m at the bfi Southbank for the Orton TV plays. It is already, as JO himself might say, “full of types.”
I predicted it last week. This week, Lucy Connolly spoke to a huge audience at Reform UK’s conference. Link 👇
September 6, 2025 at 6:29 PM
I predicted it last week. This week, Lucy Connolly spoke to a huge audience at Reform UK’s conference. Link 👇
In the Cotswolds. We got in touch with the old Catholic England of abbeys, monks and Athelstan at Malmesbury yesterday.
August 27, 2025 at 7:46 AM
In the Cotswolds. We got in touch with the old Catholic England of abbeys, monks and Athelstan at Malmesbury yesterday.
Had no idea that the West End production of Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam starred Dudley Moore, with Hancock’s Australian buddy Bill Kerr as Bogie. theatricalia.com/play/ayg/pla...
August 25, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Had no idea that the West End production of Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam starred Dudley Moore, with Hancock’s Australian buddy Bill Kerr as Bogie. theatricalia.com/play/ayg/pla...
Some research into an obscure poster that failed to sell at an online auction yielded a delightfully prissy review by Clive Barnes...
substack.com/@jmcfire/not...
substack.com/@jmcfire/not...
August 20, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Some research into an obscure poster that failed to sell at an online auction yielded a delightfully prissy review by Clive Barnes...
substack.com/@jmcfire/not...
substack.com/@jmcfire/not...
Terence Stamp’s stab at Rimbaud, 1971’s Une saison en enfer, sadly seems to have disappeared into its own Abyssinia.
August 17, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Terence Stamp’s stab at Rimbaud, 1971’s Une saison en enfer, sadly seems to have disappeared into its own Abyssinia.
Terence Stamp didn’t have much of a stage career. He flopped as Alfie on Broadway (then turned down the film) and flopped as Dracula in London - although the latter would have been fascinating.
August 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Terence Stamp didn’t have much of a stage career. He flopped as Alfie on Broadway (then turned down the film) and flopped as Dracula in London - although the latter would have been fascinating.
Teorema is one of the great matches of actor with role. Like most of my generation, I first knew Terence Stamp through General Zod (and the Wazir in The Thief of Baghdad)...
August 17, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Teorema is one of the great matches of actor with role. Like most of my generation, I first knew Terence Stamp through General Zod (and the Wazir in The Thief of Baghdad)...
The Great Gatsby - London’s biggest party meets Fitzgerald’s bitter truth. A lavish new musical hits the London Coliseum. With Ben Francis’s Sondheim insights in mind, I ask if Broadway glitz can carry Fitzgerald’s vision.
📒link in first comment below👇
📒link in first comment below👇
August 15, 2025 at 1:53 PM
The Great Gatsby - London’s biggest party meets Fitzgerald’s bitter truth. A lavish new musical hits the London Coliseum. With Ben Francis’s Sondheim insights in mind, I ask if Broadway glitz can carry Fitzgerald’s vision.
📒link in first comment below👇
📒link in first comment below👇