Mumford and Sons second album Babel is a little less Shakespeare and a little more biblical. Exactly what you’d anticipate perhaps, Sign No More the title of the debut album and the first song from it, is taken from the great William Shakespeare’s comic tragedy Much ado about nothing and the strong vain of Shakespearean language and direct quotation proliferates their debut album. To the extent that I successfully convinced myself that listening to Sigh No More whilst revising for my El...

When I first heard that Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece, was being made into a film starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law, I admit I was sceptical, however, when I heard that Tom Stoppard was writing the screen play, I became oh so very interested.

Those of you familiar with Russian literature of this period will know all too well the Russian realist authors love of minutely detailed description of events and deep inner contemplations by their protagonists, which is why Russian ...