Audley’s Cultural Highlights of 2022
The diaries of a Princess, an American indie album, an essential history of Russia’s descent, some questionable reality TV, and more…
As we come to the end of the year, the team at Audley select their cultural highlights from another great year of literature, film, podcasts, music and television.
Who Lost Russia? by Peter Conradi - Chris Wilkins
Earlier this year I had the privilege of interviewing the Sunday Times’s Europe Editor Peter Conradi about his book Who Lost Russia? The text, first published in 2017 and now updated to include the build-up to – and early months of – the Ukraine war, is a brilliantly accessible history of Russia’s descent into barbarism since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Written by someone who has lived and worked in the country, Conradi shows how Western policy left Ukraine a sitting duck. But he doesn’t flinch from laying responsibility at the door of the real culprit, Vladimir Putin. If you’re interested in understanding why we are where we are, this is a must-read.
Bad Sisters on Apple TV - Imogen Beecroft
If you’re looking for an antidote to the chaos of 2022, look no further than Sharon Horgan’s latest Apple TV drop. It’s a light-hearted easy watch about four sisters plotting the death of their fifth sister’s husband, “The Prick.” Combining murder attempts to inspire Agatha Christie, a Shakespearean love story, and cinematography that does justice to the stunning Irish coastline, the series is a masterclass in Unconventional Wisdom. Particularly highly recommended for anyone staring down the barrel of a tricky family Christmas. Just don’t get any ideas.
Andrew Bird - Flickr/Ward 1 Photography
Inside Problems by Andrew Bird - Harry Wynne-Williams
Music is a constant in my life. It stimulates and soothes me like nothing else, so my headphones are never far away (as Audley colleagues will attest!). Spotify tells me that at 39,409 minutes over the last year, I listened more than 90% of others. So, who did I listen to the most?
Andrew Bird is an American indie/folk singer whose music I have loved ever since I first heard it years ago. He’s a brilliant songwriter who uses a violin distinctively, with a lot of looping to build up sounds that can just wash through you. Some whistling too, but don’t be put off! The album that I listened to repeatedly was his latest, Inside Problems, and one of the stand-out tracks, if you would like a taster, is Eight.
How to Apologise for Killing a Cat by Guy Doza - Rolf Merchant
Do you know your anadplosis from your chiasmus, and your periphrasus from your elenchus? This year speechwriter Guy Doza penned an energetic guide to rhetoric, focusing on the technical nature of writing to persuade, as much as its demand for creativity. Guy argues that studying rhetoric is rather like ‘defence against the dark arts’: if you can spot a rhetorical trick, you might avoid falling for an illogical argument or fallacy. His chapters on romantic rhetoric and how to apologise properly (hence the title) are particularly enjoyable. And you can tell from my first sentence I read that chapter on questions very closely.
The Berlin Diaries 1940-1945 by Princess Marie ‘Missie’ Vassiltchikov - Jamie Lowther Pinkerton
Great diarists – truly great diarists – mostly leave one feeling that as individuals they were not at all nice people. This is because, abhorring the superficial or the notion of reputation-washing, they lay bare their prejudices, peccadilloes, perversions, and soul for us to pick over and tut-tut at. Missie Vassiltchikov is a guileless exception to this rule. Berlin Diaries describes her personal journey from pre-war ‘it girl’ to fervent accomplice in the 20th July plot to kill Hitler. I defy anyone with even a vaguely romantic bone in their body not to be in love with her by the end.
Close Readings Live: The Waste Land by the London Review of Books - Harri Adams
To mark the centenary of perhaps the definitive modern poem, T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’, the London Review of Books hosted a live recording of their podcast ‘Close Readings’, where Professors Mark Ford and Seamus Perry discuss modern poets’ lives and work. Striking a balance between fun and friendly, and deeply informative, ‘Close Readings’ is my favourite podcast by far. This live recording was an incredible treat and a reminder of the unique joys of poetry.
Another poet once asked how certain combinations of words can “draw tears,” and admitted that the only answer he could find was that “they are poetry, and find their way to something in man...older than the present organisation of his nature.” Ford and Perry emphasised that it was this indefinable something in the poem, and in all poetry by extension, that makes it so valuable to our shared experience and enables it to endure. A wonderful thing to be reminded of as we go into 2023.
Screening of The Looming Tower - LBJ Library photo by Jay Godwin
The Looming Tower on Amazon - Twyla Williamson
Out of all the series I have watched this year, the most memorable by far is The Looming Tower, a 10-part Amazon series. Based on the book by Lawrence Wright, the story follows the rise of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and the interoperability between the counter-terrorism divisions of the FBI and CIA in the decade leading up to 9/11.
Most notably, the last scene of the series is 20 minutes long and entirely in Arabic, where Ali Soufan, the Lebanese FBI agent interrogates Al Qaeda operative Abu Jandal.
It is both a masterpiece in storytelling as well as a masterclass in interrogation techniques. In the words of Soufan: “You must understand something. When I ask a question, I already know the answer.” Much like the quote from the scene, I already knew the ending. But the skill with which this story unfolded, left me still hopeful events may play out differently until the credits rolled. One for the mid-Christmas slump.
Housewives of Salt Lake City on Bravo - Lucy Thompson
I wish I could say that after a long day at the office my hands reach for a Booker prize winner, or I dig into the challenges of global diplomacy. Alas, the diplomacy I am more interested in is that which is needed to survive on the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, a reality TV show set in Mormon Utah.
From the off this Bravo newcomer was awash with controversy, ranging from accusations levied at a housewife for running a cult (after marrying her step-Grandfather and inheriting a megachurch) to electrifying confrontations about infidelities, and most notably one housewife being arrested in real-time by the FBI for fraud. These ladies certainly do not follow Mormon tradition. After the sobering year we’ve had, there is simply nothing better than escaping into the lives of the wealthy and wannabe-wealthy - women who are likeable, mad, and flawed (some with felony charges) in equal measure.
Credit (top image): From left to right: LBJ Library photo by Jay Godwin/ Flickr/Ward 1 Photography / Trusted Reviews