Tom Morton-Smith
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tommortonsmith.com
Tom Morton-Smith
@tommortonsmith.com
4.3K followers 710 following 520 posts
Writer
My Neighbour Totoro @ Gillian Lynne Theatre, London.

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I think my play Ravens is due a revival:
MAX: Nothing's certain until he's sat at the board ... and even then ... (Shrugs.) He's lashing out ... blaming his tools….. blaming Spassky's new chair. anything but himself. (Beat.) The system we have ... the rules and the conventions of the international Chess Federation ... there's an assumption at the heart of our system that we would always be dealing with reasonable men. The norms and customs of championship play never accounted for bullies and madmen. GUDMUNDUR: He is an outlier ... a once-in-a-generation player ... MAX: It is in the event of outliers that we have such safeguards. He is popular ... and that makes chess popular …and my God aren't we delighted. Take away the cameras... take away the circus ... take away his charisma .. and would we bend? No. There were too many exceptions made ... too many rules circumvented or bent all out of shape... just so that we could proceed. I should have claimed the first game forfeit. We should not have dolerated his requests... even if it meant defaulting the championship to the Soviets. The fallout would have been great ...the investment lost ... the profile squandered .. the embarrassment... but, after it all, we would have maintained our integrity. We have long been a dying interest ... niche .. exclusive and exclusionary ... for the sake of some attention ... for the sake of column inches and relevance we've let this arsehole crap all over us. GUDMUNDUR: Chess will survive Bobby Fischer. MAX: And all the arseholes of the future will be able to cite him as precedent. How will we enforce laws we've so publicly allowed to be broken? GUDMUNDUR: Spassky could still win. MAX: Would it matter now? GUDMUNDUR: So ….. should we void it all …. start again …..? MAX: To what end? GUDMUNDUR: To restore faith. MAX: Faith doesn't break, it dies.. and what is dead remains dead. Trust, however... we can rebuild trust ... but that takes time and repentance.
January 7, 2026 at 6:29 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Winter scenes in the Peak District.
January 5, 2026 at 4:05 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Gavin appreciation skeet.
January 2, 2026 at 4:21 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Though if we were going off what I am currently reading then I would be a robot restaurateur.
The audiobook cover of Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz.
December 30, 2025 at 7:37 PM
tommortonsmith.com
I think I’m a clone tasked with watching the last remnants of humanity mutate and evolve before their inevitable extinction. Could be worse.
You are now forced to have the same job as the main character in the last book you read. What is the job? The cover of Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird.
December 30, 2025 at 7:23 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Received the Monument Valley trilogy for the Nintendo Switch for Christmas, and my five year old has really taken to it. It’s so gorgeous and wholesome and he’s been so quick to pick it up. It makes my heart sing.
A still from the Monument Valley computer game.
December 30, 2025 at 4:27 PM
tommortonsmith.com
I’m so excited that my friend Nav is part of @potterythrow.bsky.social! Genuinely one of the nicest fellas there is.
Screenshot of the Great Pottery Throw Down’s Instagram page. A incredible smiley man with the name NAVEED superimposed in white letters.
December 30, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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Boxing Day is homemade sausage roll day. Look on my works, ye mighty, and eat sausage rolls.
December 26, 2025 at 9:20 AM
tommortonsmith.com
New Lego. Santa’s sleigh.
Lego Santa’s sleigh. Four Lego reindeer pulling Lego Santa’s sleigh. Lego Santa on his sleigh.
December 25, 2025 at 5:53 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Psycho (1960)
Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
A Certain Killer (1967)
December 12, 2025 at 8:45 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Starting to feel festive. 🤩🎄
A Christmas tree.
December 6, 2025 at 2:45 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Asleep in a bucket chair.
December 6, 2025 at 8:34 AM
tommortonsmith.com
‘Tis the season.
December 1, 2025 at 7:03 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Happy #caturday from Gavin.
Gavin, a white and tabby cat, looking magnificent.
November 29, 2025 at 7:38 AM
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Oh I think I’ll be fine.
November 25, 2025 at 5:21 PM
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You’re very welcome, Ceinwen Patridge of Newport. 😊 (from the letters page of the current @radiotimes.bsky.social).
NO WEASEL WORDS Thank you so much, writer Tom Morton-Smith and Radio 4, for their delightful, refreshing take on Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (16 November). I was having a bad day, sat down and listened to A Weasel's Tale, sensitively narrated by Penelope Wilton, and was immediately elevated to a happy place. The Wind in the Willows is my all-time favourite book and, thanks to Tom Morton-Smith, it keeps on giving. Ceinwen Partridge Newport, Gwent
November 25, 2025 at 3:08 PM
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Gavin from above. #caturday
November 22, 2025 at 9:14 AM
tommortonsmith.com
A mixed week, but by no means a bad one:

The Fantastic 4: First Steps (2025)
Buddha Mountain (2010)
Frankenstein (2025)
The BFG (2016)
November 21, 2025 at 5:20 PM
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My radio play, a variation on The Wind in the Willows, is a Pick of the Week in the current edition of @radiotimes.bsky.social. Listen at 3pm Sunday on BBC Radio 4.
The Wind in the Willows: a Weasel's Tale Sun 3pm Radio 4 It's a brave move to reinterpret such a family classic and dramatist Tom Morton-Smith is to be congratulated for making this work so well. Told from the point of view of a young weasel, this honours the spirit of the novel while bringing prescient insight on what it means to be seen as an interloper from a lower class. With Penelope Wilton as the narrator, this is top notch.
November 11, 2025 at 1:31 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Genuinely saddened to hear of the death of Tatsuya Nakadai - a remarkable actor with an incredible career. One of the finest screen actors of the 20th century with an incomparable filmography.
A still from Masaki Kobayashi’s masterpiece The Human Condition: No Greater Love (1959). When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1969), dir: Mikio Naruse. Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970). Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985).
November 11, 2025 at 7:35 AM
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My five year old wanted me to draw him a vampire he could colour in, so I drew him this Nosferatu.
A badly drawn Nosferatu, coloured in by a child.
November 9, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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Seven years.
Looking across the estuary of the River Dee.
October 22, 2025 at 10:39 AM
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I spent the last couple of years pitching a stage adaptation of László Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance, but no one picked it up. Just putting it back out there now he’s got a Nobel.
A black and white image of a man in a black hat and coat staring into the massive eye of a dead whale. A still from Bela Tar’s Werckmeister Harmonies, which is an adaptation of László Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance.
October 10, 2025 at 8:09 AM
tommortonsmith.com
I managed to go to a theatre and see a play! Well bloody (ha) done @mogster.bsky.social. 🧛🏻‍♂️
The proscenium arch of the Lyric Hammersmith theatre. Raggedy curtains projected with the word ‘Dracula’.
October 1, 2025 at 3:31 PM
tommortonsmith.com
Adventures in vintage Lego: siege tower.
September 20, 2025 at 9:20 AM