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Vanessa Thorpe
For Vanessa Thorpe's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Dec 1, 2013
Farrow courts controversy with paternity musings
For a while, Mia Farrow was a genuine housewife. In a life of bright lights and dark, dark shadows, this must surely count as one of the most unusual periods of them all: a moment of apparent stability and respectability in the late 70s and early 80s. During this time, she picked up her twin sons Matthew and Sascha by the conductor Andre Previn from their ballet classes and music lessons and took them back to the family home in Leigh, southeast England, much as if she had never been the daughter of Tarzan's Jane, Maureen O'Sullivan, nor the young bride of Frank Sinatra.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 27, 2013
Hitler escape book's authors in plagiarism row
The notorious claim that Hitler escaped his Berlin bunker to live incognito in Argentina first gained popular currency in 1945, when Stalin spoke of it. Since then the idea has resurfaced occasionally, with alleged photographic and documentary evidence pored over by conspiracy theorists. Now the theory that the German dictator followed his fellow Nazis Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele to South America is at the center of a fresh row.
LIFE / Digital
Oct 15, 2013
As viewing habits change, Facebook, Twitter eye up a big slice of TV's future
Talk to your neighbors about their television viewing habits and you will probably find that, although the range of programmes watched is pretty narrow, the methods for receiving them vary wildly from house to house. Some people get their favorite shows via gaming consoles, some by downloading them on a PC; some by playing them through a device such as Apple TV; some are satellite customers; while others doggedly stick to so-called "linear" viewing on the standard terrestrial channels, albeit received through a digital system.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 27, 2013
Lord Byron to Russell Brand: timeless appeal of the bad boy
When the singer Katy Perry spoke recently about her relationship with British comedian Russell Brand, not so long after their whirlwind courtship and immediately after their whirlwind divorce, she refrained from putting the boot in, despite Brand having ended the short marriage by text.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Aug 23, 2013
Pop star or avant-garde artist? Lady Gaga now wants to be the next Warhol
The message is crystal clear: do not buy Lady Gaga's latest album or download tracks because she is "over" and "no longer relevant." Many will be happy to obey, but it's not quite that simple.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 12, 2013
The Cockney hardman who is Britain's most bankable star in Hollywood
Clipped vowels, a suggestion of impeccable breeding: when it comes to Hollywood's appetite for British and Irish actors it is easy to see why producers keep shopping on these islands. It does not matter whether the stars really went to Eton, the public school sheen on Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Orlando Bloom, Toby Stephens, Tom Hiddleston and Eddie Redmayne is dazzling. It makes them ideal for dashing romantic leads in costume dramas and, with age, for nasty villains.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Feb 2, 2013
Hugo, Manet unveiled Paris' poor and privileged
The iron gates of the short passageway, a stone's throw from the increasingly trendy Montorgueil district of Paris and a brief walk from the prostitutes of Saint Denis, are closed to the public these days. It was here, in what was Passage Saumon off the Rue du Bout du Monde — the end of the world road — that Victor Hugo is said to have sheltered between the stone pillars of the public baths and a ballroom of low repute from a raging battle between republican and monarchist forces on June 5, 1832. The gates were slammed shut then, too, leaving the writer trapped in the crossfire.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on