Christopher Isherwood Inside Out by Katherine Bucknell review – courage and camp
The Anglo-American novelist’s angsty inner life is under the spotlight in this impressively researched biography
October 2022
A Single Man review – Isherwood’s melancholy mourner falls apart in 60s California
This adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel about a gay man grieving the loss of his lover lacks the depth of Tom Ford’s movie version
May 2022
Cabaret review – Liza Minnelli musical still divinely decadent and chillingly relevant
Minnelli brings the razzle dazzle to a Berlin determined to ignore the gathering storm in this cinematic masterpiece
June 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 novels told in a single day
From James Joyce and Virginia Woolf to Nicholson Baker, the ‘circadian novel’ can pack lifetimes of experience into 24 hours
July 2019
From the Guardian archive
The Ascent of F6: Auden and Isherwood's play reviewed - archive, 1938
5 July 1938 A play about mountaineering, the sharp satire cuts at imperialism, patriotism and war
March 2018
Monty Python star Graham Chapman’s show-stopping feat
Letters: Directing Graham Chapman in The Dog Beneath the Skin left a lasting impression on Duncan Noel-Paton
The Dog Beneath the Skin review – Auden and Isherwood's ragbag revue
WH Auden and Christopher Isherwood’s satire on 1930s nationalism has a topical pungency but can’t match the gravity of the subject
Book clinic
Book clinic: what are the best titles for LGBTQ+ representation?
Armistead Maupin, Jeanette Winterson and a host of other good writers have brought gay literature into the mainstream
August 2017
Reading group
Reading group: which book about gay life should we read in August?
To mark the 50th anniversary of decriminalisation in the UK, please help choose a novel to mark the occasion. There are hundreds to choose from
May 2017
Pod complex
The Animals: Simon Callow and Alan Cumming bring the story of 'the gay first couple' to life
It’s easy to get lost in the joyful, spiky love story of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, whose love letters from vintage Hollywood underpin a great new podcast
March 2017
Weimar memories: walking Berlin … in a flâneur's footsteps
Armed with Franz Hessel’s cult guidebook, Walking in Berlin, published in 1929, Vanessa Thorpe is transported back to the city’s decadent period
November 2016
From the Guardian archive
Interview: Christopher Isherwood – archive
17 November 1960: His direct manner and well scrubbed appearance remind you of a surgeon rather than a writer
April 2015
The 100 best novels
The 100 best novels: No 83 – A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (1964)
Christopher Isherwood’s story of a gay Englishman struggling with bereavement in LA is a work of compressed brilliance
February 2015
The 100 best novels
The 100 best novels: No 75 – Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
Nabokov’s tragicomic tour de force crosses the boundaries of good taste with glee
March 2014
David Bowie's catharsis in divided Berlin revealed in adapted V&A show
V&A's fastest-selling show to open in Berlin – a city that has had a profound effect on the singer's music and thinking
February 2014
Top 10s
Rory MacLean's top 10 Berliners in literature
Rory MacLean: From Sally Bowles in Goodbye to Berlin to Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Berlin's literary inhabitants bring the city alive
January 2014
Dylan Thomas script of South Pacific mystery gets first ever production
BBC Radio 3 produces little-known screenplay The Beach of Falesa, taken up by Richard Burton but never made into a film
December 2013
Film blog
Top 10 musicals
Musicals have been tap dancing their way into moviegoers' hearts since the invention of cinema sound itself. From Oliver! to Singin' in the Rain, here are the Guardian and Observer critics' picks of the 10 best
October 2013
The Guardian Books podcast
Letters of Hemingway and Isherwood, with Simon Garfield – books podcast
Letters from Ernest Hemingway and Christopher Isherwood give us an intimate portrait of their lives, while Simon Garfield traces the art of letter writing through the ages
August 2013
Julie Harris, actor who won six Tony awards, dies at 87
Veteran film and theatre actor won greatest accolades for her work on Broadway
