Claire Allfree

For more than 10 years now, the Yard Theatre has been producing some of the boldest fringe theatre in London out of a concrete warehouse in

Putin's sabre-rattling seems to have renewed our cultural obsession with the Cold War. Dr Strangelove is in the West End, Mick Herron's Slough House novels are back on TV and Nick Harkaway, son of le Carré, has brought George Smiley out of retirement to assist in a case involving a young female Hungarian emigree, a missing literary agent and a Russian assassin in 1963.

This new play at the Hampstead Theatre, which superbly explores the Cod Wars during the Seventies, is a rare treat

Sean Foley’s knockabout adaptation of Kubrick’s era-defining film is marked by a consistent refusal to take its subject seriously

It's great to see a straight play by an unknown writer in the West End, even if the play is both flimsy and dated and predominately a vehicle for Lily Collins , making her theatre debut.

The Emily in Paris star and Money Heist’s Álvaro Morte elevate a rather dated two-hander into something properly affecting

Claire Allfree reviews the Literary Fiction out now.

The 76-year-old American chef and owner of a Michelin-starred restaurant on quality ingredients, grief and comfort food

The celebrated novelist on being blacklisted in her homeland, literary snobs and why writing is harder than people think

It's 8am in the morning in San Francisco and the 82-year-old Isabel Allende has already received two emails from readers asking for advice. “People write to me all the time saying they have diaries they've written, love letters, poems. They say: ‘please can you turn them into a book?'” The author gives a silvery laugh. “Everyone thinks their story is important.”