George Monbiot Interview.

I was very happy to have been given the chance to interview this tireless campaigner and journalist in the early part of this year – it’s a long one, so if you’re sitting comfortably…

What made you decide to become a journalist?

I’m not really sure to be honest! When I was at university the only job I wanted was working for the Natural History Unit at the BBC and so I just pestered them for about a year and a half. Finally they said, and I quote, “you’re so fucking persistent that we’ll give you the job”, it was easier for them to do so than not and I started out as a radio producer. It wasn’t so much the idea of journalism then, it was doing something relevant to the environment and what I always wanted to do was make investigative environmental programmes.

David Hillman interview – Robin Hood Tax Spokesperson.

Of all the proposed solutions to the dismal state of this country’s finances, the Robin Hood Tax makes most sense to us. It could raise as much as £20 billion per year in the UK alone. In short, the idea is to place a tiny tax of 0.05% on financial transactions like stocks, bonds, derivatives and foreign currency. It would only apply to organisations, so no individual would feel its effects. It could raise an estimated £250 billion per year globally to combat poverty, climate change and the economic downturn.

We spoke to David Hillman, director of Stamp Out Poverty and spokesperson for the Robin Hood Tax, about the UK campaign, its origins and why the tax didn’t make it into the Comprehensive Spending Review.

The Signalman and Other Ghost Stories @The Lantern Theatre

It was a cold, wet and windy night. As miserable as the weather was, I would have had it no other way because when travelling to see a performance of ghost stories at the Victorian Lantern Theatre, it was the most perfect set up I could have imagined. Enter Montagu Furzan, psychic investigator, who guided us in a journey through four supernatural tales:  The Listeners (Walter de la Mare), The Rose Garden (M.R. James), The Black Cat (Edgar Allen Poe) and culminating in The Signalman by Charles Dickens.

Much Ado About Nothing @ The Lantern Theatre

Following last month’s review of Hamlet, we at Now Then were feeling positively cultured. So when kindly offered the chance to review the new production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Lantern Theatre, we couldn’t snap up those tickets fast enough, and a fabulous evening was had.

The Dilys Guite Players are an amateur theatre group who have been going strong since 1957 and the talented cast pulled off an ambitious production with wit and verve.

Metropolis; Everyone should watch this.

Metropolis, 1927. Director: Fritz Lang.

26,000 male extras, 11,000 female extras, 750 child extras, 750 bit players and of course the actual cast. No, it’s not the latest James Cameron epic. In fact it’s not even a ‘talkie’. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is nonetheless more epic than anything the esteemed Mr Cameron has produced, a German expressionist science fiction masterpiece full of startling imagery depicting a harrowing vision of a dystopian urban future.

Ghostbusters; The best thing to come out of the 80s?

Ghostbusters, 1984. Director: Ivan Reitman.

The 80s. Cinema cheese was good back then; a finely aged Stilton as compared to the plastic slice on a burger of today’s offerings. Perhaps in a couple of decades we’ll be having Back to the 00s Series, but we’ll be hard pressed to find a rival to the silly-grin nostalgia generated by Ghostbusters.

Harvey; So much more than a film about a giant rabbit.

Harvey, 1950. Director: Henry Koster

Meet Harvey, he is 6 foot 3 and a half inches tall and he is a rabbit. Well, a pooka to be precise, which is a Celtic fairy in animal form. Harvey is the best friend of one Elwood P. Dowd and the pair are to be found happily propping up Charlie’s Bar every afternoon. Until Elwood’s invisible furry friend threatens the social standing of his sister Veta and her daughter, Myrtle Mae’s chance of marrying well. Then it’s off to Chumley’s Rest Sanitarium and a comedy of errors.