Ten themes of 2021: a review of the year in arts and media | thearticle

1) THE RISE AND RISE OF INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS One of the surprise publishing hits of 2021 was _The Passenger_, a thriller set in Nazi Germany by a refugee, Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz and

published by Pushkin Press. Founded in 2014, Fitzcarraldo Editions has also had a terrific year, with Joshua Cohen’s new novel, _The Netanyahus_, Olga Tokarczuk’s _The Books of Jacob_ and_

In Memory of Memory_ by the Russian poet, Maria Stepanova. 2) JEWISH-AMERICAN WRITING Two big new biographies of Philip Roth by Blake Bailey and Ira Nadel reminded us that Roth is still the

most controversial of the great Jewish-American writers. Cohen’s _The Netanyahus_, Cynthia Ozick’s _Antiquities_ and Dara Horn’s first book of essays,_ People Love Dead Jews_ were all

provocative books which packed a punch, though they largely passed British critics by. 3) ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE ARTS In the last few years anti-Semitism has swept through the Labour Party

and our universities. So perhaps it was inevitable that it would spark controversies in British culture, from theatre to publishing. First, there were two provocative and polemical books

about the reality of antisemitism in Britain: David Baddiel’s _Jews Don’t Count_ and _The Taming of the Jew_ by the Israeli journalist, Tuvia Tenenbom. The Irish writer Sally Rooney (author

of the bestseller, _Normal People_) decided not to let her novel, _Beautiful World, Where Are You_, be translated into Hebrew as part of her support for the pro-Palestinian BDS movement. The

Royal Court showed how not to handle a PR crisis with a new play, _Rare Earth Mettle_, with a super-rich villain called Herschel Fink, who the theatre insisted was not Jewish despite his

obviously Jewish name. At the time of writing, the scandal rolls on as two of the chief backers of the theatre have withdrawn their funding. The BBC broadcast an all-star drama series,

_Ridley Road_, about anti-Semitic fascism in Britain in the 1960s, but this caused less stir than the BBC’s continued anti-Israel news coverage and anti-Semitic comments by BBC journalists.

4) THINKERS AND PHILOSOPHERS 2020 was a terrific year for books on philosophy, including _The Murder of Professor Schlick_ by David Edmonds, Cheryl Misak’s acclaimed biography of Frank

Ramsey and the translation of Wolfram Eilenberger’s _Time of the Magicians_. 2021 has continued the trend with acclaimed biographies of thinkers like Kurt Gödel, John von Neumann and Hannah

Arendt. Arendt has been the subject of a number of new books including Ann Heberlein’s _On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt_, Kei Hiruta’s _Hannah Arendt and Isaiah

Berlin: Freedom, Politics and Humanity_ and Samantha R Hill’s_ Hannah Arendt_, with Lyndsey Stonebridge’s major biography still to come. What is immediately striking about these thinkers is

that, except for Ramsey, they are all refugees from German-speaking central Europe. 5) NEW NEWS, BAD NEWS Last year saw the launch of Times Radio, which is barely talked about. It looked

like the same fate would befall GB News after its founder Andrew Neil quit, but the technical glitches stopped and the main presenters – Alastair Stewart (ex-ITN), Colin Brazier (ex-Sky

News), Simon McCoy (ex-BBC) and Dan Wootton (previously Executive Editor of _The Sun_) — found their feet. Nigel Farage’s interview with Donald Trump brought the Channel its highest ratings

since it launched. GB News’s audience figures have overtaken Sky News and as the BBC comes under renewed attack for its anti-Johnson, anti-Israel, anti-Brexit bias and continues to lose key

figures (Neil and Marr, in particular), it has left the door open for its new challenger. 6) THE BIGGEST STORY IN BRITISH SPORT With the Euros and the Tokyo Olympics, who would have bet that

an unknown tennis player and a relatively unknown cricketer would have been the biggest stories in sport in 2021? Emma Raducanu won the US Open at her first attempt and then came Azeem

Rafiq’s allegations of racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. 7) THEY’RE BACK Six years after _Spectre_, Bond was back. Two years after Series 5, _Line of Duty_ returned. Now we have _Sex

and the City_ (without Samantha) and Spielberg’s _West Side Story_, while Anthony Hopkins became the oldest winner of the Oscar for Best Actor for his moving performance in _The Father_,

almost thirty years after winning it for _The Silence of the Lambs_. 8) THE WHITE OSCARS Everyone thought this would be the breakthrough year for Black talent at the Oscars. It wasn’t.

_Mank_ received ten nominations, but the biggest winners were _The Father_ and _Nomadland_ (Best Picture, best Director and Best Actress). 9) FEMALE TALENT 2021 was a great year for female

talent: Chloé Zhao was awarded the Oscar for Best Director and Frances McDormand for Best Actress, both for _Nomadland_; the Paula Rego exhibition at Tate Britain confirmed her reputation as

one of the great artists of the post-war period; Michaela Coel won a Primetime Emmy Award and four BAFTAs for_ I May Destroy You_; Cush Jumbo played Hamlet and Jessie Buckley played Juliet

and Sally Bowles in _Cabaret_; and nearly half a century after her death, Hannah Arendt became the most written-about intellectual of the year. 10) THE MOST SHAMEFUL MOMENT FOR THE BBC IN

2021 It’s a hard choice. Was the most shameful moment for the BBC in 2021 the Martin Bashir story, or accusations of anti-Semitism and political bias? My own choice is very different. When

Sir Antony Sher and Stephen Sondheim died, two of the great creative talents of our time, not only did BBC News manage to get Sher’s career wrong, but they failed to use iPlayer or BBC4 to

show some of the great works by both men or put together proper tributes. When Sinatra died _The South Bank Show_ aired a tribute within days. When Nureyev died, BBC 2’s _The Late Show_ put

together an obituary straightaway. This tells a terrible story about the dumbing down of the BBC. Whether that is worse than accusations of bias, you will have to de A MESSAGE FROM

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