Review
Culture
3 min read

Most popular 2024: the contributors

From politics and media, to sporting controversy, our top writers’ takes on the year.

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A painting of the Last supper showing Christ and the disciples at a table.
da Vinci's Last Supper.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

We’re wrapping up the year reviewing what articles were most popular with Seen & Unseen readers. Our final analysis is of the top 10 contributor takes on the year’s events. What did our writers,  well,  write about?

Two interviews resonated with our readers. One with a volunteer surgeon in Gaza, while the  other got to the bottom of what’s kept a veteran politican going. Talking of which, we also gave Joe Biden some advice too.

We reviewed Kier Starmer’s favourite book, praised Sally Rooney’s new opus, and watched a Netflix blockbuster that gave the church a bad name. And took Disney to task for the Disneyfication of the monasteries.

On matters of the mind and heart  we took Ted and Taylor to task, while critiquing a dating app's shade-throwing ad.

And, like, our editor-in-chief’s top story, paganism high profile needed investigating too.

Over 170 writers have contributed to Seen & Unseen. Explore them using the Contributor List and their work through our Index of 800 articles.

10 - Celibacy, the Pope and the dating app

There’s a desperate need for a new sexual revolution.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Identity, Romance.

Read more from this author.

9 - My open letter to Sally Rooney: dilatasti cor meum

You enlarge my heart.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Books, Wildness.

Read more from this author.

8 - The book Keir Starmer says you must read

Will Hutton’s This Time No Mistakes surveys the thinking that could solve Britain’s ills.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Economics, Politics.

Read more from this author.

7 - Stephen Timms: still on mission

The MP on five decades trying to prove a Christian Tory wrong.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Politics, S&U Interviews.

Read more from this author.

6 - Self-belief: what Ted and Taylor get wrong

Psychologist Roger Bretherton questions whether believing in ourselves is all it’s cracked up to be, despite what culture icons might say.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Identity, Psychology, Taylor Swift.

Read more from this author.

5 - Shardlake: the Disneyfication of the Monasteries

What works, and doesn’t, translating from page to screen.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Film and TV. Monastic Life.

Read more from this author.

4 - Jonathan Aitken: I’m in my 80s and here’s what I’d tell Joe Biden

Don't succumb to this politicians' fantasy.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Ageing, Politics.

Read more from this author.  

3 - Christianity’s big PR problem

Dancing for the Devil is just the latest shock-jock exposé.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Film & TV.

Read more from this author.

2 - Eye witness: life and death in Gaza’s European Hospital

 

Returning plastic surgeon Tim Goodacre reports on the struggles, the despair and the dignity of the people and the medics of Gaza during their long nightmare.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Gaza, Israel, Middle East, S&U interviews, Suffering, War & peace.

1 - Paris 2024 and Christianity’s opening ceremony

A subversive Olympic opening relies on Christianity’s own beginnings.

Explore more articles on themes in this article: Paganism, Sport.

Read more from this author.  

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Graham Tomlin

Editor-in-Chief

Article
Character
Culture
Film & TV
Music
4 min read

Love is all you need. Really?

We want to feel the main character energy of each of the Beatles

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

Four actors dressed in black stand together
The new cast.
Neal Street Productions.

One of the joys of moving into central London is the nostalgia. You can 'remember' anything in London, but for a Beatles fan like me (one year I was in the top one per cent of listeners globally on Spotify - impressive, I know - and it was before I had kids), the aesthetic of central London is deeply connected to the fab four. I'm aware it's not Liverpool but look what London has to offer fans of the fab four.  Abbey Road’s crossing, the rooftop performance in Savile Row, or the amount of time the fab four spent just here for the famous launch of Sgt Pepper. Walking around these streets with my headphones in, it's impossible not to smile at music that is faultlessly happy-making. 

Sir Sam Mendes, however, is taking the immersive Beatles experience to a whole new level. Four coordinated films will be released in 2028 in a stunning act of ambition and delayed gratification. Mendes' production company says it will be the first 'bingeable theatrical experience.' 

Now that the cast have been revealed, lots of questions remain: How long will the films be? Will they all be released at exactly the same time? Will there be Lord of the Rings viewing marathons? By the way - did you hear about the failed pitch for a Lord of the Rings film starring John as Gollum, Paul as Frodo, George as Gandalf and Ringo as Sam? We've missed that particular masterpiece, as Tolkien turned it down, as did Stanley Kubrick for that matter. The man it did fall to, Peter Jackson, recently also released a Beatles television experience in Get Back. Even for Beatles diehards like me I've not made it through all 468 minutes. But I saw enough to see Shakespeare being written. 

Screenwriter Peter Straughan (Wolf Hall, Conclave) said that the different script writers for the not-so-imminent upcoming four films were "firewalled off from each other", so we receive four takes truly inhabiting the shoes of each protagonist. Band members wanting their own 'main character energy'? Surely not! 

Only Mendes knows how the films will tie together. "Each one is told from the particular perspective of just one of the guys," Sir Sam told CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday. "They intersect in different ways - sometimes overlapping, sometimes not." 

"They're four very different human beings. Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply. But together, all four films will tell the story of the greatest band in history." 

An omnipresent director still has infinite attention for each one us within a grander narrative arc. 

Lennon and McCartney are undeniably geniuses. But with the Beatles, they were always greater than the sum of their parts. Even the songs that were solos were credited to Lennon/McCartney. Their solo works, no disrespect, never quite reached the dizzying heights of their collective efforts. 

But a biopic for each bandmember is a terribly 2020s take. We want to feel that main character energy pulsing through our veins. While we want to feel part of something bigger, we want to feel that our lives are unique and distinct, not derivative (the latter not being a problem for The Beatles). 

But a quartet of films, "challenging the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies", harmonising in new ways (remind you of anything as subversive and groundbreaking?) provides an utterly lovely step-change in cinema. There's been no shortage of Beatles biographies and films, but this new concept comes closer to art imitating life. Our lives have to be lived independently, but are somehow made more meaningful and rich in connection and collaboration with others.  

The philosopher Tom Morris wrote: "There are two striking human passions, the passion for uniqueness and the passion for union. Each of us wants to be recognised as a unique member of the human race. We want to stand apart from the crowd in some way. We want our own dignity and value. But at the same time, we have a passion for union, for belonging, even for merging our identities into a greater unity in which we can have a place, a role, a value.” 

Can those passions be held in tension? The Christian faith, while commending us to be outward-focused, does more than polyphonic films. It says that each of us are worthy of our own 'cinematic events'. Yes, we mightn't have started living until we have broken free from our own confines to the concerns of broader humanity, as Martin Luther King said, but an omnipresent director still has infinite attention for each one us within a grander narrative arc. 

All you need is love, they sang. But that love needs the perfect perspective of someone else. 

Celebrate our 2nd birthday!

Since March 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free. This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.
If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.
Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief