Dr Kate Maltby
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katemaltby.bsky.social
Dr Kate Maltby
@katemaltby.bsky.social
weekly at the i newspaper (news column)
monthly at Prospect & at The Stage (on theatre)
often at FT & Observer (books, culture)

also Deputy Chair, Index on Censorship; Co-Chair, Critics' Circle (Drama); Senior Research Associate, Jesus College, Cambridge
In case you’re listening to the BBC Today Programme on Radio 4, I’ll be on at about 8.45 to talk about… Katy Perry going into space with Jeff Bezos’ fiancée. (And why it may not be exactly a feminist achievement.)
April 14, 2025 at 7:23 AM
On Sam Mendes’ Beatles, ‘participatory culture’, and the rash of premature fan responses. Late to post, but here’s yesterday’s column for The Observer.

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/a...
April 7, 2025 at 5:51 PM
I found myself thinking about the Cultural Revolution, and the moment when teenagers at one Beijing's most elite schools murdered one of their teachers in the name of Mao.

I see someone with an interest in the reputation of Deng Xiaoping's daughter, Deng Rong, has trained Chat GPT well.
February 7, 2025 at 1:33 PM
You should of course click through & read the whole piece, but I found this a striking interviewing in the "content / trigger warnings" debate. Eline Arbo is quite clear that the proliferation of warnings increased the susceptibility of audiences to fainting during the abortion sequence in her play.
January 31, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Facebook, Instagram, WashPo, Amazon, Twitter. If a photo had been released of Vladimir Putin’s meeting of July 28, 2000, at which he set out the terms of collaboration to Russia’s oligarchs, it would have looked a little like this.
January 21, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Clicking aimlessly through Wikipedia and I find myself refamiliarising myself with the youth of Felix Yusupov, killer of Rasputin.
January 3, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Well, Anne Marie Duff is pretty bloody mesmerising in Little Foxes at the Young Vic, isn’t she? Yes, this is a melodrama which telegraphs its twists and turns at every stage, but it’s a magnificent role and Duff nails it.
December 12, 2024 at 10:40 PM
This is a man who never bothered to find out what happened to Don Juan.
December 12, 2024 at 5:31 PM
Ozymandias
December 8, 2024 at 9:53 PM