Two scholars take opposing sides on Twelfth Night. But there’s a third option — The sea can get pretty rough off the coast of Albania and Croatia. One of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, Twelfth Night, takes place after a shipwreck along that coastline. Two of the passengers on board ship – a brother and a sister – are twins. …

An old argument explodes in 104 riveting minutes — A while ago, the New Yorker made a clear and unequivocal statement about movies. It said the idea of eco drama was “a contradiction in terms”. It’s a view that has been widely shared in the entertainment industry. Changing light bulbs, not flying, not eating meat, not buying fancy new…

He went to preach. He stayed to paint. What happened? — At the age of 25, Vincent Van Gogh went to the Borinage, a coal-mining region in west Belgium. He went to preach and his duties there included Bible readings, teaching and visiting the sick. Coal mining had taken place in the Borinage for 500 years, but the industry had expanded…

One bank is the best at holding two opposing ideas — The London offices of JPMorgan Chase — one of America’s Big Four banks — are in the City of London, close to the River Thames. I was walking past the entrance when I saw a sign. It read: JPMorgan Chase believes in a healthy, smoke free environment, including our outdoor…

How “A Drop of Fred” came back after 30 years — Two metal plates: one on the front, one on the heel. Out of that combination came a dance form where sound and movement merge as a double-act. The title of a recent history of tap dancing, What The Eye Hears, captures this perfectly. For the general public, the golden age…

The best definition that theatre has offered so far — It’s a word that could mean almost anything. But in Steve Waters’ double-bill The Contingency Plan (2009), one of the characters gives the best definition of “resilience” that has so far appeared on stage. The setting is a cabinet room in Whitehall. Colin Jenks, the government’s chief scientific advisor, is…

From rubbish on a plane to wrapping paper in prison — Each person who heard the funny remark at the barbecue heard it in their own way and, if prompted, would have given their own account of it. Imagine someone passing the remark on to someone who passes it on to someone else — a single moment could go through a…

Only this time in black and white — He had forgotten to do his homework. The assignment he had been given was to come up with an example of wordplay which could be included in the school magazine. When the teacher asked him for his homework, he had to think of an example there and then, so he…

Danger comes when things travel too far — In its way, a pun is as much a thing as any other object. It does stuff. It moves around in the world. Sometimes what it does has unintended consequences. For instance, there’s a movie from the 2000s where there’s a pun — just an averagely amusing play on words…