Another five-star review on Amazon for my new book “Everyone Has A Story”
March 19th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
“Not only does everyone have a story, everyone could write something like this engaging book. Read this collective biography of 33 friends of the author, all assembled within a year’s time. This is not about accomplishment but connection to the author, and the variety provides a glimpse into Roger’s own bio as he comments on each of those connections. Buy it, read it, and consider doing your own version, or at least a list of those you might include.”
A great idea which truly captures the spirit of the book.
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A review of the new film “The Bride!”
March 15th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
There are far too few mainstream films made by women so, at one level, we have to welcome Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second offering after her restrained and refined work in “The Lost Daughter”. “The Bride!” is absolutely Gyllenhaal’s film: she wrote, directed and produced it and her brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) and her husband (Peter Sarsgaard) star in it.
It is also Jessie Buckley’s movie: following on from her success in “Hamnet”, this tour de force performance in the eponymous role cements her reputation as an outstanding actress. In this overtly feminist story, two other leading roles go to women: Annette Bening as the ‘mad’ scientist and Penélope Cruz as the smart (in both senses of the word) detective. The always-impressive Christian Bale is the Frankenstein figure, so this is a movie with star-power.
The film is a wild rage of expression and a riot of eclectic visual and aural material, but sadly with too little thought for narrative coherence.
Visually, we have a cornucopia of colours, whether make-up, costumes or sets, with everything from dancing and singing to chasing and shooting and many reminders of “Bonnie And Clyde”. Musically, we have a mixture of classical work (including Schubert), jazz and cabaret (including Irving Berlin), and the modern work of Hildur Guonadóttir (known for her work on “Joker” and “Tár”).
What we don’t have is a plot which is comprehensible and intelligible. So this a hugely ambitious and never-dull movie that ultimately falls disappointingly flat.
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The first Amazon review of my new book “Everyone Has A Story”
March 14th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
“This is, in a sense, the third part of a brilliantly conceived trilogy. The first took the form of a fairly conventional ‘memoir’, written essentially for family friends and former colleagues. But even here, the focus, foreshadowing later works, is on all the people Roger met during his three-quarters of a century who have illuminated his life and ‘made’ him ‘what he is’.
In the second book, Roger decided that the residents in the block in which he lived were not only fascinatingly diverse but deeply interesting. And so he set out to interview about forty of his neighbours, devoting an enthralling individual chapter to each. Certainly more imaginative than asking to borrow a cup of sugar!
In this third and latest work, entitled ‘Everyone has a Story’, our doughty author – also an impossibly prolific and indefatigable blogger (vide his weighty ‘NightHawk’) – chose more than 30 friends and acquaintances, each of whom has an extraordinary tale to tell and in whose pen portraits Roger has highlighted a particularly gripping motif. In his painstaking interviews, presented in a highly readable, conversational style, Roger has clearly laid out just how varied, instructive, and life-affirming, his extremely wide range of interests are. This will already be obvious to anyone who regularly reads his highly eclectic blog.
Space does not permit me to reference all but a few of his interviewees or to delve into their intriguing life stories, many of which were surprising and inspirational, but all of which have had a profound impact on the author. Highlights include a lifelong human rights activist, a consumer advocate, a senior trade unionist, survivors respectively of war, revolution and a kidnapping, a highly competitive marathon runner, a Holocaust historian, a champion of digital inclusion and someone who came back from the dead.
I heartily recommend this remarkable collection of tales, which has something of interest for everyone.”
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A review of the impressive and important 1961 film “Judgement At Nuremberg”
March 12th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
It was only after I had seen the 2025 “Nuremberg” that I finally viewed the 1961 “Judgement At Nuremberg”. While the first of these deals with the trial of the most senior of the Nazi war leaders by a four-power International Military Tribunal, the second film is a fictionalised depiction of one of the 12 trials – that concerning senior judges – conducted by the Americans alone.
In reality, there were 16 defendants at the trial but the film only features four, two of them based on real people – Franz Schlegelberger (1876-1970) and Oswald Rothaug (1897-1967) – and two of them amalgams of the others. The film is not an easy watch: it is almost three hours long, it is very heavy on dialogue, and it uses actual footage of the concentration camps. But it is an impressive and important work.
The script by Abby Mann and the direction by Stanley Kramer are outstanding and the cast is star-stunned. The four most prominent roles were filled by Spencer Tracy as the Chief Judge, Burt Lancaster as the prime defendant, Richard Widmark as the prosecuting lawyer and Maximilian Schell as the defending lawyer. Other well-known actors in supporting roles include Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Montgomery Cliff, and even William Shatner (before his “Star Trek” days).
Above all, this is a vital piece of cinema because of the hugely complex moral issues that it examines: how much guilt should be attributed to individuals at different levels of responsibility in an authoritarian regime? how much account should be taken of the wider economic and political environment in assessing guilt and administering punishment? who should make these judgements and when? The film presents conflicting arguments, often in powerful speeches.
The film received 12 Academy Award nominations and won two (Mann for Best Screenplay and Schell for Best Actor). In 2013, “Judgment At Nuremberg” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
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A review of the memoir “The Sweet Spot” by Ronnie S Landau
March 10th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Ronnie quotes a therapist as telling him “You’re one of the most oral people I’ve ever met.” As someone who first encountered Ronnie on a course he was giving on the Holocaust and who subsequently interviewed him for a book of my own, I can confirm that the therapist was correct.
This is what has made Ronnie such an outstanding teacher of children in state and private schools, undergraduates and graduates in various universities, and even passengers on cruise ships. But he can write as well as he speaks and indeed, in this memoir, writes as if he is speaking which makes his book an easy, enjoyable and entertaining read.
“The Sweet Spot” is a memoir, not a biography, so he eschews the ‘and then …’ approach, instead telling us a series of stories – often humorous – involving some fascinating characters and his own colourful personality. The title is a reference to both “the enormous good fortune to be born in 1948” (same here) and his fortuitous life and career avoiding poverty, pain and too many problems (except the loss of his first book thanks to the death of Robert Maxwell).
We learn that, outside of his wives and children, the great loves of his life have been supporting Sunderland football club and consuming chopped liver. If these seem odd passions, there are elements of contrast, if not contradiction, in Ronnie’s life.
His two historical periods of erudition are classical Greece and Rome of some two millennia ago and the Holocaust of the last century; his writing suggests a humanistic, even socialistic, approach to life and yet he has spent a significant portion of his career in the massively privileged independent school sector; on the one hand, he wants the Holocaust to be memorialised in a contextual fashion but, on the other hand, he is deeply concerned at how the Holocaust has made Israel “such a politicised, vigilant and, in critical times, paranoid society”.
Predominately, the memoir is about Ronnie’s very accomplished professional career and not his personal life, but there are moving final chapters about his six parents-in-law, three wives and three children. Also there are appendices reproducing reviews and articles on the Holocaust and, as well as heartily recommending this memoir, I would commend his 1992 book “The Nazi Holocaust: Its History And Meaning” which is still available.
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A review of the film “A House Of Dynamite”
March 5th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Kathryn Bigelow is a rarity among American directors, a woman who makes compelling movies with a military theme. I was enormously impressed by “The Hurt Locker” (2008) and “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012). Here, she works with scriptwriter Noah Oppenheim and sound designer Paul NJ Ottosson to present to us a gripping insight into a nightmare scenario: an intercontinental ballistic missile has been launched at the United States; nobody knows who is behind this or why they have launched such a surprise attack; but the American administration has just 19 minutes to decide how to respond.
The film has a novel narrative structure: a triptych in which the same set-up, with much of the same dialogue and characters, is presented from three points of view, each in a different principal location with a different main character. So, we are in the White House Operations Room with Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson); then in the office of the Secretary of State for Defense (Jared Harris); and finally, in a helicopter with the US President (Idris Elba).
“A House Of Dynamite” has been criticised for its repetitive structure, but the approach serves to emphasise the complexity of the issues and the decision-making process. Many are also unhappy with the sudden and unresolved ending, but this is not a story with a conclusion but a question to be considered: would we really use strategic nuclear weapons?
The film was funded by Netflix, so most viewers will see it on television and struggle with catching all the dialogue. I managed to view it on the big screen and fortuitously it was a version with sub-titles (even then, technical terms and acronyms abound). So the work is only a partial success, but a worthy and effective attempt to remind us that the Cold War may be over but the nuclear threat remains.
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“Everyone Has A Story”
March 2nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
After a year and a half of interviewing, writing and editing, my latest book – entitled “Everyone Has A Story” – is now available for purchase on Amazon. It is a series of profiles of 33 of my friends with particularly interesting stories. As you read these profiles, you’ll be amazed, amused, informed, and inspired.
Please can I appeal to you for help in promoting the book:
1. Buy a copy for yourself and purchase a few others as an inexpensive, personal gift for family and friends. You know the author!
2. Promote the book on your social media, especially your Facebook page and any WhatsApp groups that you frequent.
3. When you’ve had a read, post a short review on Amazon.
Many thanks, my friend. Really appreciated. And enjoy the book!
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A review of the latest film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights”
March 1st, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I’ve read the dark and dour 1847 Emily Brontë novel and I’ve seen the film adaptations of 1939, 1992 and 2011, so why would I want to view yet another cinematic interpretation of this long and complex work? The main reason is that the writer and director is Emerald Fennell and I was so unsettled by her earlier, controversial film “Saltburn” that I was intrigued to know what she would do with this classic novel.
As I expected, there is nothing subtle about Fennell’s vision. It is visually striking with glorious views of the Yorkshire Moors, endless close ups of the characters, lots of shots through windows and arches, amazing costumes and jewellery for Catherine, and a staggeringly opulent Thrushcross Grange. The sound too is arresting, from even before the first scene, through wind, mist and rain in shot after shot, and a soundtrack dominated by Charli XCX. With Fennell, we expect sex and there’s a lot of it but no nudity. This is a liberal, even fanciful, interpretation of the novel, contrasted with earlier versions that have been much more faithful to the original material.
Perhaps this version will be remembered most for its casting. The Australian Margot Robbie, who plays Catherine, is one of the most beautiful actresses around, but she can act too, and it’s not difficult to imagine a man being mesmerised by her. I was less taken by fellow Australian Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, but Fennell used him in “Saltburn” and his Spanish father possibly gives him the dark look which Brontë ascribed to the character.
The casting for some of the more minor characters is inspired, especially Martin Clunes as Catherine’s father and Hong Chau as the housemaid Nelly (who would have expected a Thai to fill the role but it works wonderfully).
So, in short, a very ambitious work that scores enough to be seen and admired if not loved.
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Our West Africa cruise to Senegal and The Gambia
February 28th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I love travel and, over my 77 years, I’ve done over 200 foreign trips. Recently – together with my fiancée Tess – I made my first visit to West Africa. It was a cruise to Senegal and The Gambia. You can read an account of our holiday here.
This brings the number of countries that I’ve visited to 93. You can see the full list here.
I always remember the wry comment attributed to the American writer Susan Sontag (1933-2004):“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”
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West African Cruise Day 3: Sunday – Cruise the Sine-Saloum Delta, explore Joal Fadiouth and sail to Banjul, Gambia
February 15th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This morning, we arrived in Senegal’s Sine-Saloum Delta, a UNESCO biosphere reserve and an important birding area. The park is a haven for lots of mammal and fish species, from marine turtles and dolphins to West African manatees and crocodiles.
Today’s optional excursion started at 9.15 an and finished at 3.45 pm and it was an exciting time. Our yacht moored off the coast, while we took pirogues (motorised wooden canoes) to the the fishing village of Djiffer, where we made a ‘wet landing’ (shoes and socks off and trousers rolled up).
The a coach took us one hour north to Joal and Fadiouth, small towns set on land made of clam shells which are traditionally used in local crafts and architecture. Although Senegal is
overwhelmingly Muslim, for historic colonial reasons, Fadiouth is substantially Catholic with a Church of St Francis Xavier.
We explored the islands by crossing new long wooden bridges and taking slim wooden canoes crafted from a single piece of wood and navigated with long poles.
At Joal, we enjoyed lunch overlooking the islands before returning to Djiffer. On the outward journey, we stopped to observe vultures devouring a dead donkey. On the return journey, we halted to view a hugh bilbao tree, said to be the oldest in Senegal, an estimated 1800 years.
Late afternoon, we continued sailing south to our port for the night in Gambia’s capital, Banjul, the gateway to the 700-mile-long Gambia River.
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