Illuminations
banner
illuminations.bsky.social
Illuminations
@illuminations.bsky.social
Media producer of arts docs, screen performance; posts by John Wyver, Professor of the Arts on Screen, Univ of Westminster; broadcasting history, esp early TV, theatre, film, visual art
Images: Man w the Flower, ‘30 / de Stael, Le Saladier (detail), ‘54
Spike Lee at excellent q&a after screening of Highest2Lowest this morning - and just before he went to the derby. Loved the film (apart from maybe the final 15 minutes), which is a quintessential NYC movie, and a movie about NYC movies: Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, French Coonection are its forbears.
November 23, 2025 at 7:32 PM
‘Australia trails…’ or ‘Australia trail…’; I would have thought the latter #Ashes #pedantry
November 21, 2025 at 8:39 AM
These digital ads imposed on the side shots in #Ashes coverage make the space of the field feel really strange.
November 21, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Here’s that side shot with three brands. Not the BBC is it?
November 21, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Neat new tech at TNT Sports
November 21, 2025 at 2:53 AM
… and three more (!) brands, electronically imposed, in the less-often-used side shot @TNT Sports.
November 21, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Four (!) on-field brands in the wide shots at TNT Sports coverage…
November 21, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Here we go
November 21, 2025 at 2:22 AM
How completely weird is this! But nice too.
Doing some reading about director Tony Richardson (ahead of an intro next month at BFI Southbank), I opened at random Don Radovich's 1995 'Tony Richardson: A Bio-Bibliography, published by Greenwood Press in 1995.
And I found this...
November 13, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Courtauld cafe after the Wayne Thiebaud exhibition 🙂
November 6, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Only two rooms, but a stellar show
November 6, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Cakes by Wayne Thiebaud at Courtauld, Somerset House
November 6, 2025 at 10:35 AM
... and that's me done, I think - proofs, queries, final checks, the lot.
October 30, 2025 at 4:44 PM
You can hardly read it, but it says, Everybody Needs a Place to Think, BBC Four. Installed on London’s South Bank benches for channel’s launch. A lifetime ago.
October 18, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Tate’s Henry Moore Locking Piece, 1964, looking somewhat the worse for wear on Millbank this morning.
October 18, 2025 at 11:34 AM
This morning, 11am in the UK, midday CET - and it's not too late to request a Zoom link from from [email protected]
October 15, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Looking forward next Wednesday to outlining some of my ideas in and research processes for my forthcoming book "Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain". Do e-mail for a Zoom link if you would like to listen in.
October 9, 2025 at 8:49 AM
'Rohtko', by Polish director Łukasz Twarkowski and tireless team, is @Barbican for one more show - and is astonishing, a bit banal, extraordinary, occasionally boring, challenging (nearly 4 hrs), beautiful, an absolutely unique mix of performance + live video - I was enthralled; pic is curtain call
October 4, 2025 at 4:39 PM
In Bradford for Widescreen Weekend and staying at the grand but somewhat faded Midland Hotel where, I am perversely delighted to discover, in 1905 Sir Henry Irving breathed his last on this staircase. His manager, Bram Stoker, was in attendance.
September 28, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Great 'Captive Cinema' programme at BFI Southbank last night, with Associated-Rediffusion documentaries from 1955-57, including "Our American Cousins", intro'd by BFI curator Lisa Kerrigan. Part of Lisa and colleagues' brilliant A-R season.
September 24, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Very pleased to be contributing an Entangled Media Histories seminar about the writing of 'Magic Rays of Light', online on Wednesday 15 October.

Request a Zoom link from [email protected]
September 19, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Starry line-up for Q&A after last night's VistaVision projection at Odeon Leicester Square BAFTA preview screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's 'One Battle After Another':
PTA, Leonardo diCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro.
September 16, 2025 at 9:22 AM
The distinctive bulgibng Orangina bottle, a sign of the sophistication of the Continent since I was yay-high, seems, on the evidence of our current trip, to be increasingly rare, replaced by anonymous cans.
September 12, 2025 at 5:29 AM
So refreshing from Zack Polanski
September 2, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Absolutely delighted that Dan Briggs, son of the BBC's first official historian Asa Briggs, has written to The Observer supporting the need for on-request vetting to re-instated at the BBC Written Archives Centre (p.29; not I think online).
Letter's wording is in the .alt element.

#waccampaign
August 31, 2025 at 8:55 AM