Joe Moran

Thank you Stephen! And thanks for reading. Glad you are enjoying it.

Why does no-one leave steaming hot pies next to street-level open windows these days? This is not the future the Beano promised us

Wunmi Mosaku Wins the Supporting Actress BAFTA for Sinners | EE BAFTA Film Awards 2026 YouTube video by BAFTA

Wunmi Mosaku, who won best supporting actress at the BAFTAs, thanked my mum (her old drama teacher) at the end of her speech! youtu.be/ExVzYoaSSec?...

Thanks so much, Rachael! I listened to Nick Drake a lot while writing it ...

Another World by Melvyn Bragg review – portrait of the broadcaster as a young man Leaving behind Cumbria for Oxford in the late 1950s, Bragg navigates class and culture in a world on the brink of change

My review of Melvyn Bragg's Another World www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

Read History Workshop Journal's 100th Issue.

Join us in celebrating a milestone for radical history. The 100th issue of History Workshop Journal is out now, complete with with powerful research, fresh debates, and global perspectives on how history is made and remade: oxford.ly/4qJlO2s @historyworkshop.org.uk

Joe Moran - Where Fry Met Laurie Joe Moran: Where Fry Met Laurie - The Cambridge Footlights: A Very British Comedy Institution by Robert Sellers

I reviewed Robert Sellers's book about the Cambridge Footlights here literaryreview.co.uk/where-fry-me...

Thanks so much, Rishi! So pleased you enjoyed it.

The cover of History Workshop Journal 100. The cover is a woodland green, and shows an abstract illustration of a coniferous tree based on Sadiah Qureshi's article on the Wollemi pine.

The latest issue of History Workshop Journal is out now, and it marks two exciting milestones: 50 years and 100 issues of innovative radical history.

You can read the journal on the HWJ website through the link below!

academic.oup.com/hwj...

The rise and fall of an undervalued institution The youth club – a scuffed-up room in a church hall or prefab building, with subsidized pop and snacks, pinball machines and pool tables, and a range of

Here is my review of Emma Warren's history of the youth club: www.the-tls.com/politics-soc...

Radical Reads 2025 History Workshop editors share their reflections on the radical books and films which have compelled them, fascinated them, and moved them throughout 2025.

Now an annual tradition at History Workshop, members of the team share their "Radical Reads" for 2025.

The Innocents of Florence by Joseph Luzzi review – how abandoned babies spurred a flowering of Renaissance art The precarious, cruel but dazzling world of a foundling hospital is brought wonderfully to life by the author of Botticelli’s Secret

My review of Joseph Luzzi's The Innocents of Florence is here: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

'Exiting the market' is such a crap euphemism. It's not like the 'university' will then go and apply all its assets to another market. Those assets (human and non-human) will be dispersed, wasted, destroyed. Un-creative destruction. Which we can't afford as a society.

A radio programme like the Shipping Forecast but it’s called Bin Day and it just reads out every single council in the country’s bin schedule

I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan review – startling stories of China’s new precarity The viral blog turned book details the exhausting life of a courier, but something may have been lost in translation

I reviewed Hu Anyan's I Deliver Parcels in Beijing here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.

From Jung Chang’s Fly, Wild Swans: Oliver Twist is translated into Chinese as Orphan in the Capital of Fog

Sandersons Throat Specific Mixture has worked for me in a similar situation

Thanks Jeff!

thank you!

Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry review – a brilliant meditation on mortality The Essex Serpent author offers a moving account of her father-in-law’s final illness that will resonate widely

I reviewed Sarah Perry's Death of an Ordinary Man here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Open letter BBC Written Archives - August 2025 Join the campaign to protect the future of independent research at the BBC Written Archives Centre The following text is an open letter expressing the concern of historians and researchers about chan...

Calling historians and researchers. The BBC Written Archives Centre has changed its access rules without consultation. This means an end to proper independent research into the BBC's rich history. 178 have already signed the open letter. Please join the campaign here:

tinyurl.com/bbcwaccampaign

Richard Briers agreed with you - he didn't like his character either. Mostly the character gets away with it because the actor playing him is so likeable.

Under the cover of darkness

'The newsreader Tina Ritchie imagines she is reading the midnight news to King Charles, who she knows listens in bed.'

Joe Moran on night as a space of fear and imagination

Brilliant news - Congratulations!

Oxford supervision, mid 1980s style. From Richard Flanagan's Question 7

Congratulations Claire!

Just added to my collection of graduation booklets (useful for recalling names of past students). No prizes for guessing why there are three for 2022 and none for 2020 and 2021

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

Join us! We are advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop in 2025-27.

Our fellowships support early career historians to develop expertise in public, radical and digital history & to gain experience of working in an editorial team.
www.historyworkshop....

I wonder if the Microsoft Bing algorithm feels hurt that so many people type 'Google' into its search box