Divorce

Thursday

Lloyd Evans

A tatty new theatre offers up a comic gem that’s sure to be snapped up by the BBC

New venue. New enticement. In the undercroft of a vast but disregarded Bloomsbury church nestles the Museum of Comedy. The below-stairs space wears the heavy oaken lineaments of Victorian piety but the flagstones have been smothered with prim suburban carpeting, wall-to-wall. There’s a bar in one corner. Yes, a bar in a church. With prices high enough to make you take the pledge. The ecclesiastical shelves are crammed with books, magazines, scripts and photographs that summon up the ghosts of our comedy heroes. A big carved pew, centrally plonked, invites the worshipper to sit and read, let us say, the autobiography of Clive Dunn or the diaries of Kenneth Williams.

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Easy divorce has been catastrophic for British children (and I say this as a divorcee)

Would you find it difficult to remain friends with someone if he or she suddenly revealed that they intended to vote Ukip in the next election? Or perhaps it is the case that you yourself have told friends that you intend to vote Ukip and have seen those dinner-party invitations drying up, or have been shunned by acquaintances in the queue to order your Christmas turkey at Waitrose. A new survey suggests that Ukip is a ‘toxic’ party, with almost a quarter of people (24 per cent) reporting that we would find it hard to remain friends with someone who felt warmth and fellowship towards Nigel Farage. The implication was

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Watch out Pope Francis: the Catholic civil war has begun

‘At this very critical moment, there is a strong sense that the church is like a ship without a rudder,’ said a prominent Catholic conservative last week. No big deal, you might think. Opponents of Pope Francis have been casting doubt on his leadership abilities for months — and especially since October’s Vatican Synod on the Family, at which liberal cardinals pre-emptively announced a softening of the church’s line on homosexuality and second marriages, only to have their proposals torn up by their colleagues. But it is a big deal. The ‘rudderless’ comment came not from a mischievous traditionalist blogger but from Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: St Augustine and Louise Mensch, war votes and flannel

Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire Stevens) concerned about her son’s turn to conservative Islam, and one conservative Catholic (Louise Mensch) determined that her children understand her unbending fidelity to the tradition.  Ms Mensch’s problem is endemic throughout the western church, Catholic and Protestant alike: greater confidence in human sinfulness than in God’s forgiveness. Mrs Stevens’s problem is the opposite: a lack of confidence in her atheism. Brought up to believe in nothing, one is prone to believe in anything. At least if you bring a child up Christian, he can always choose to reject the

Thursday

Jane Ridley

Can virgins have babies?

Mrs Christabel Russell, the heroine of Bevis Hillier’s sparkling book, was a very modern young woman. She had short blonde hair which she wore in two large curls on the side of her head, she was wildly social and she was a fearless horsewoman. In 1920 she set up a fashionable dress shop, Christabel Russell Ltd, at 1 Curzon Street. At the end of the first world war she had married John Russell, known as ‘Stilts’ (he was 6’5” tall), the heir to Lord Ampthill, a cousin of the Duke of Bedford. His snobbish and crusty parents disapproved furiously of the marriage. The young couple spent little time together. Christabel,

Thursday

Alexander Chancellor

Long life: Putin, Saatchi, Murdoch…hell hath no fury like an old man scorned

The days may be long gone when a husband would pretend to commit adultery in a Brighton hotel so as to clear his wife, whatever her faults, of any blame for a divorce. But might it not still be customary for him at least to present their separation as mutually and amicably agreed? Not so, apparently. For such gallantry has been strikingly absent from the three most publicised divorce suits of the summer, in which rich and powerful men have each acted unilaterally and without much regard to their spouses’ dignity. A month ago, Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian television with his wife, Lyudmila, to announce that their 30-year marriage