John Marlowe, a shoemaker from Canterbury, died in 1605. His son Christopher had failed to follow him into the trade, choosing the more unreliable life of playwright, poet and jobbing spy. It had been

Leigh Lawson has embraced acting and poetry with the same determination that sustained Marie Lloyd, the music-hall queen whose memorabilia he collects, as Carla Passino discovers

The year 1966 saw a new bright star light up the London stage. The play was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and the playwright was Tom Stoppard who, at 29, was the youngest person ever to have a

There are various reasons to be thinking about ...

How the young Dylan Thomas repeatedly stole from others

A critic with ‘an almost devout passion for good poems’