Ronald Porter is a regular contributor to the Conservative History Journal and I am delighted to be able to put his review of Brenton's play about Harold Macmillan on the blog. I hope this might become a new departure for other contributors as well. NEVER SO GOOD [By Howard Brenton ]Lyttelton TheatreReviewed by Ronald Porter.For me it was a total disaster. A big let down. The play was wildly misleading and inaccurate and much of the acting was shallow and unconvincing. Docu-dramas never really work for me. I always find Reality...

It has taken a little time to recover from the trip back in time but Tory Historian has now returned to the twenty-first century, ready to discuss both the production and the history as presented in the plays, which is very different from the history as it happened though, curiously, the overall pattern is not inaccurate.(Tory Historian has finally worked out that Prince John, Henry V’s younger brother and later the Duke of Bedford, was...
Tory Historian is taking a trip into the fifteenth century this week-end. It is very conveniently to be found at the Roundhouse in North London. Tonight it is Shakespeare's "Richard II" (well, all right, parts of the fourteenth as well) and tomorrow the two parts of "Henry IV".As described earlier, "Henry V" had to be seen out of sequence, as tickets for tomorrow evening's performance had already been sold out. That means a break tomorrow evening and the three parts of "Henry VI" on Saturday."Richard III" will be given a miss....
Two separate events in my life in the last week or so have coalesced in one theme. Things happen like that sometimes. The first was a double book launch at the Social Affairs Unit of Peter Whittle’s “Look At Me – Celebrating the Self in Modern Britain” and of Lincoln Allison’s “Disrespect – or how the wrong kind of niceness is making us weak and unhappy”.Both books are about the modern world and of the many ills that have befallen it, thus...
This week-end Tory Historian has fulfilled a long-standing ambition and visited Benjamin Franklin’s House in Craven Street, near Charing Cross Station. Well, worth a visit if you have a couple of hours to spare.The house is as it was in the days when Franklin lived in London, trying to negotiate an agreement between the British government and the Colonies on matters to do with taxation as well as conducting scientific research, writing...
Links
Powered by Blogger.
Followers
Labels
- 1922 Committee (1)
- abolition of slave trade (1)
- Abraham Lincoln (2)
- academics (2)
- Adam Smith (2)
- advertising (1)
- Agatha Christie (4)
- American history (33)
- ancient history (4)
- Anglo-Boer Wars (1)
- Anglo-Dutch wars (1)
- Anglo-French Entente (1)
- Anglo-Russian Convention (2)
- Anglosphere (19)
- anniversaries (175)
- Anthony Price (1)
- archaelogy (8)
- architecture (8)
- archives (3)
- Argentina (1)
- Ariadne Tyrkova-Williams (1)
- art (14)
- Arthur Ransome (1)
- arts funding (1)
- Attlee (2)
- Australia (1)
- Ayn Rand (1)
- Baroness Park of Monmouth (1)
- battles (11)
- BBC (5)
- Beatrice Hastings (1)
- Bible (3)
- Bill of Rights (1)
- biography (21)
- birthdays (11)
- blogs (10)
- book reviews (8)
- books (78)
- bred and circuses (1)
- British Empire (7)
- British history (1)
- British Library (9)
- British Museum (4)
- buildings (1)
- businesses (1)
- calendars (1)
- Canada (2)
- Canning (1)
- Castlereagh (2)
- cats (1)
- censorship (1)
- Charles Dickens (3)
- Charles I (1)
- Chesterton (1)
- CHG meetings (9)
- children's books (2)
- China (2)
- Chips Channon (4)
- Christianity (1)
- Christmas (1)
- cities (1)
- City of London (2)
- Civil War (6)
- coalitions (2)
- coffee (1)
- coffee-houses (1)
- Commonwealth (1)
- Communism (15)
- compensations (1)
- Conan Doyle (5)
- conservatism (24)
- Conservative Government (1)
- Conservative historians (4)
- Conservative History Group (10)
- Conservative History Journal (23)
- Conservative Party (25)
- Conservative Party Archives (1)
- Conservative politicians (22)
- Conservative suffragists (5)
- constitution (1)
- cookery (5)
- counterfactualism (1)
- country sports (1)
- cultural propaganda (1)
- culture wars (1)
- Curzon (3)
- Daniel Defoe (2)
- Denmark (1)
- detective fiction (31)
- detectives (19)
- diaries (7)
- dictionaries (1)
- diplomacy (2)
- Disraeli (12)
- documents (1)
- Dorothy L. Sayers (5)
- Dorothy Sayers (5)
- Dostoyevsky (1)
- Duke of Edinburgh (1)
- Duke of Wellington (14)
- East Germany (1)
- Eastern Question (1)
- economic history (1)
- Economist (2)
- economists (2)
- Edmund Burke (7)
- education (3)
- Edward Heath (2)
- elections (5)
- Eliza Acton (1)
- engineering (3)
- English history (56)
- English literature (34)
- enlightenment (3)
- enterprise (1)
- Eric Ambler (1)
- espionage (2)
- European history (4)
- Evelyn Waugh (1)
- events (22)
- exhibitions (12)
- Falklands (3)
- fascism (1)
- festivals (2)
- films (13)
- food (7)
- foreign policy (3)
- foreign secretaries (2)
- fourth plinth (1)
- France (1)
- Frederick Burnaby (1)
- French history (3)
- French Revolution (1)
- French wars (1)
- funerals (2)
- gardeners (1)
- gardens (3)
- general (17)
- general history (1)
- Geoffrey Howe (2)
- George Orwell (2)
- Georgians (3)
- German history (3)
- Germany (1)
- Gertrude Himmelfarb (1)
- Gibraltar (2)
- Gladstone (2)
- Gordon Riots (1)
- Great Fire of London (1)
- Great Game (4)
- grievances (1)
- Guildhall Library (1)
- Gunpowder Plot (3)
- H. H. Asquith (1)
- Habsbugs (1)
- Hanoverians (1)
- Harold Macmillan (1)
- Hatfield House (1)
- Hayek (1)
- Hilaire Belloc (1)
- historians (38)
- historic portraits (6)
- historical dates (10)
- historical fiction (1)
- historiography (5)
- history (3)
- history of science (2)
- history teaching (8)
- History Today (12)
- history writing (1)
- hoaxes (1)
- Holocaust (1)
- House of Commons (10)
- House of Lords (1)
- Human Rights Act (1)
- Hungary (1)
- Ian Gow (1)
- India (2)
- Intelligence (1)
- IRA (2)
- Irish history (1)
- Isabella Beeton (1)
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1)
- Italy (1)
- Jane Austen (1)
- Jill Paton Walsh (1)
- John Buchan (4)
- John Constable (1)
- John Dickson Carr (1)
- John Wycliffe (1)
- Jonathan Swift (1)
- Josephine Tey (1)
- journalists (2)
- journals (2)
- jubilee (1)
- Judaism (1)
- Jules Verne (1)
- Kenneth Minogue (1)
- Korean War (2)
- Labour government (1)
- Labour Party (1)
- Lady Knightley of Fawsley (2)
- Leeds (1)
- legislation (1)
- Leicester (1)
- libel cases (1)
- Liberal-Democrat History Group (1)
- liberalism (2)
- Liberals (1)
- libraries (6)
- literary criticism (2)
- literary magazines (1)
- literature (7)
- local history (2)
- London (14)
- Londonderry family (1)
- Lord Acton (2)
- Lord Alfred Douglas (1)
- Lord Hailsham (1)
- Lord Leighton (1)
- Lord Randolph Churchill (3)
- Lutyens (1)
- magazines (3)
- Magna Carta (7)
- manuscripts (1)
- maps (9)
- Margaret Thatcher (21)
- media (2)
- memoirs (1)
- memorials (3)
- migration (1)
- military careers (1)
- monarchy (12)
- Munich (1)
- Museum of London (1)
- museums (5)
- music (7)
- musicals (1)
- Muslims (1)
- mythology (1)
- Napoleon (3)
- national emblems (1)
- National Portrait Gallery (2)
- nationalism (1)
- naval battles (3)
- Nazi-Soviet Pact (1)
- Nelson Mandela (1)
- Neville Chamberlain (2)
- newsreels (1)
- Norman conquest (1)
- Norman Tebbit (1)
- obituaries (25)
- Oliver Cromwell (1)
- Open House (1)
- operetta (1)
- Oxford (1)
- Palmerston (1)
- Papacy (1)
- Parliament (3)
- Peter the Great (1)
- philosophers (2)
- photography (3)
- poetry (5)
- poets (6)
- Poland (3)
- political thought (8)
- politicians (4)
- popular literature (3)
- portraits (7)
- posters (1)
- President Eisenhower (1)
- prime ministers (27)
- Primrose League (4)
- Princess Lieven (2)
- prizes (3)
- propaganda (8)
- property (3)
- publishing (2)
- Queen Elizabeth II (5)
- Queen Victoria (1)
- quotations (31)
- Regency (2)
- religion (2)
- Richard III (6)
- Robert Peel (1)
- Roman Britain (3)
- Ronald Reagan (4)
- Royal Academy (1)
- royalty (9)
- Rudyard Kipling (1)
- Russia (10)
- Russian history (2)
- Russian literature (1)
- saints (7)
- Salisbury (6)
- Samuel Johnson (1)
- Samuel Pepys (1)
- satire (1)
- scientists (1)
- Scotland (1)
- sensational fiction (1)
- Shakespeare (16)
- shipping (1)
- Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1)
- Sir Charles Napier (1)
- Sir Harold Nicolson (6)
- Sir Laurence Olivier (1)
- Sir Robert Peel (3)
- Sir William Burrell (1)
- Sir Winston Churchill (17)
- social history (2)
- socialism (2)
- Soviet Union (6)
- Spectator (1)
- sport (1)
- spy thrillers (1)
- St George (1)
- St Paul's Cathedral (1)
- Stain (1)
- Stalin (3)
- Stanhope (1)
- statues (4)
- Stuarts (3)
- suffragettes (3)
- Tate Britain (2)
- terrorism (4)
- theatre (4)
- Theresa May (1)
- thirties (2)
- Tibet (1)
- TLS (1)
- Tocqueville (1)
- Tony Benn (1)
- Tories (1)
- trade (1)
- treaties (1)
- Tudors (2)
- Tuesday Night Blogs (1)
- Turkey (3)
- Turner (2)
- TV dramatization (1)
- twentieth century (2)
- UN (1)
- utopianism (1)
- Versailles Treaty (1)
- veterans (2)
- Victorians (13)
- War of Independence (1)
- Wars of the Roses (1)
- Waterloo (5)
- websites (7)
- welfare (1)
- Whigs (4)
- William III (1)
- William Pitt the Younger (4)
- women (11)
- World War I (20)
- World War II (54)
- WWII (1)
- Xenophon (1)