Jack Blackburn

When Johnny Flynn researched his role as Richard Burton in The Motive and the Cue, he channelled Hamlet: “Thrift! Thrift!” The play concerns John Gielgud directing Burton as the Dane, but Flynn’s

It was a field of death where thousands lost their lives and were buried. Yet, 200 years later, when archaeologists came to dig at Waterloo, they could find no more than a pair of skeletons.A new

Professor Nicholas Royle recalled a conversation about his grandmother’s illicit romance with the married children’s novelist

Stunning structures from Shah Jahan’s bath were removed during colonial rule in India and will go on display after decades in storage

Queen Elizabeth II was known for her emotional reserve, but the actor Michael Ball once saw her upper lip unstiffen. He sang People Will Say We’re in Love at a

Holbeche House, in Dudley, is the place where the Gunpowder Plot ended. The remaining plotters were besieged there and some, including the ringleader Robert Ca

When the well-imbibed people of Britain enjoy a kebab in the wee hours of Saturday morning, they should do so proud in the knowledge that they are part of a tra

As the injured RAF pilot Frank Griffiths crossed the Pyrenees in October 1943, looking over his shoulder for Nazis, all he could think about was survival. Eight

Beneath the dreaming spires of Oxford lurks a dark and seedy past. For all their education, the university’s students made the city a den of iniquity full of dr

It helped the wealthy folk of London have a little fishy on their little dishy and, in doing so, transformed the fortunes of Norfolk fishermen in the 19th century. However, after decades of obsolescence, Great Yarmouth’s Ice House is doing the architectural equivalent of running off and joining the

The King’s state visit has seen a man set French hearts aflutter, with one TV news show summarising the sensation in a feature entitled “Qui est l’homme en kilt

When the former Downing Street chief of staff Dominic Cummings set about disrupting Westminster, he began with journalists’ expenses

It’s out of the frying pan and into the fire for the poor people of the Chiltern Hundreds, as they move from the stewardship of Boris Johnson to that of Nadine

For many actors, being cast as a jedi is a childish dream, but some were more childish about it than others

Despite all his achievements, Sir Michael Parkinson had many aims he did not accomplish. In their show last year, his son Michael Parkinson Jr listed his fathe

Most 86-year-olds are facing a particular sort of final frontier, but Brian Blessed is looking to the stars. The veteran actor bellowed on Newsnight that he was

It wasn’t all parties in the Boris Johnson era. The Spectator has revealed that, as prime minister, he revived a 92-year-old Downing Street tradition by asking

In purely historical terms, Cutty Sark’s cousin really is an incredible hulk. Lady Alice Kenlis is one of the oldest surviving iron-hulled ships in Britain and, after 80 years on its Suffolk deathbed, it has been granted protected status in order to secure a rare glimpse of a sea change in British s

The thrilling tale of Iris Origo’s bravery in Italy during the Second World War is the inspiration for a book by Fiona Valpy

If one thinks of international criminal networks, what usually comes to mind is people trafficking, guns or drugs, not old archival material.However, the expos