Life in Squares: does the Bloomsbury group drama go far enough?

Published in The Independent on Sunday on July 26, 2015

Within the first five minutes of Life in Squares, the BBC’s major new drama about the Bloomsbury Group, two corsets are ripped off – and summarily chucked out of a window with a cry of “freedom!” It’s a statement of intent from sisters Vanessa and Virginia Stephens, a literal throwing off of restrictive Victorian convention, before they became the beating heart of the bohemian social circle of artists and thinkers named after the London neighbourhood in which they lived in the early 20th century. Continue reading “Life in Squares: does the Bloomsbury group drama go far enough?”

Jessica Raine interview: Call the Midwife star on doing Agatha Christie – and feeble roles for women

Published in The Independent on Sunday on July 12, 2015

Jessica Raine may have locked up her bicycle and folded away her nurse’s uniform, but it seems the Call the Midwife star can’t escape the 1950s. She’s back on the BBC this summer in Partners in Crime, a six-part adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence spy novels. The Beeb is hoping the slightly hapless husband-and-wife crime-fighting team will prove as popular as Poirot or Miss Marple. Continue reading “Jessica Raine interview: Call the Midwife star on doing Agatha Christie – and feeble roles for women”