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New issue alert! Hello, Junkies! Forgive my interrupting your Friday afternoon with a promotional message but yesterday we published the latest issue of Esquire — Spring 2025, if you can believe that when you look out the window — and I hope that you might consider buying a copy, or even taking out a subscription, if you haven’t already. It’s for others to say whether Esquire is any good. But I’m proud of this issue. We all love a pithy cultural tip-sheet, of course we do. But a print magazine offers our writers an opportunity to go deeper and longer on topics untethered from the pop-PR cycle.
The cover story for Spring is a terrific piece by Mick Brown exploring the enigma of Bob Dylan, much in the news right now thanks to A Complete Unknown, the recent Oscar-nominated film about the troubadour’s early years. Mick is among the finest of British feature writers — those who have been reading Esquire for a while, as well as anyone who takes the Daily Telegraph, will know his work already — and he’s among a handful of working journalists who have met and interviewed Dylan, rather than just watched some videos on YouTube. If you’ve any interest at all in exploring the great man beyond the Timothée Chalamet impersonation, check it out.
Why stop there? Inside the magazine, Will Hersey has spoken to the main players behind the most polarising brand relaunch of recent times: the revolutionary overhaul of Jaguar, once a potent symbol of priapic British masculinity, more lately a rather flaccid also-ran, rusting away on the prestige motoring forecourt. Will Jag’s new look put it back on top? Then there’s Tom Nicholson’s investigation of the weird subculture of British Bigfoot hunters: people who believe that the Yeti is not an American, after all, but a homegrown phenomenon, and that he’s hiding somewhere nearby. (Sidcup? Ipswich? Stoke-on-Trent? Who knows?!)
Miranda Collinge, meanwhile, pays tribute to another British subculture, UK Garage, with an effervescent oral history of that scene, featuring contributions from a rave flyer’s worth of talent: Spoony, Oxide and Neutrino, Matt “Jam” Lamont and, of course, Craig David. Boink.
Elsewhere, Amelia Tait considers the popularity of Operation Mincemeat, the incredible tale of Second World War derring-do that has birthed a bestselling book, a Hollywood movie, and a West End musical that is now set to open on Broadway.
We have a new short story from David Szalay, the brilliant fiction writer who, for my money, offers the most incisive, empathetic, and entertaining depictions of frustrated modern masculinity available. His new novel, Flesh, is coming in March. It’s a belter.
Speaking of frustrated modern masculinity, Max Olesker returns to a subject he first covered for us a decade ago: the rise of the spornosexual, a man whose body image has been scrambled by both sports stars and pornography. (Think Cristiano Ronaldo flexing his pecs.) In Max’s telling, that’s a lot of men.
As if all that weren’t enough, we have splendid pieces by John Banville, Ed Caesar, Joe Dunthorne, Simon Garfield, and Nikesh Shukla.
I am particularly attached to this new issue, I’m bound to say, because it is my last as editor in chief. I’m stepping down at the end of March. After 14 years, it’s time for a change, for me and for Esquire. I have written about this in the magazine. Don’t let that put you off.
Say it ain’t so! Or, talk about leaving us wanting less! Email the Junk Mailbag and let us know. |
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As much as The South by Tash Aw is a coming-of-age novel — a kind of love story between a boy called Jay, who decamps with his family to his late grandfather’s dilapidated farm in the south of Malaysia, and an older boy, Chuan, who works there — it’s also a definite mood. The farm to which Jay and his two older sisters are transported by their unhappy parents is a kind of Malaysian Manderley, a building that seems haunted by its past and is infected with a sickness that is causing the fruit trees around it to die. Aw — who shot to prominence with his first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory — conjures a landscape and a central romance that are heady and intense.
Out now (4th Estate) |
In what was tantalisingly close to being a compass-themed week of recommendations, my second pick is East is South, the new play from Beau Willimon that has just opened at Hampstead Theatre and stars Kaya Scodelario and Luke Treadaway. Willimon, you may recall, was the playwright and screenwriter who revivified House of Cards to electrifying effect in 2012; this time he is turning his attention to AI, and two coders who may have allowed a robot intelligence to run riot — presumably by clicking one of those fake “We tried to deliver your package” emails? I’m not entirely clear how these things work. Either way it’s sure to be clever and intriguing and I’m looking forward to being educated.
Until 15 March at Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, London NW3 3EU |
Recently I unearthed my (unsuccessful) application to intern at The Face magazine in the 1990s, and though the rejection still stings (one day I’ll show ‘em!) it remains the only magazine to earn my unwavering devotion, present company excepted. And yes, there’s something baldly nostalgic about The Face: Culture Shift, the new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of portrait and fashion photography featured in The Face from the 1980s to the 2000s. But it was truly an agenda-setting publication in an exciting, creative time and somewhere in a box in my mum’s house I’ve still got Kurt Cobain in a dress and Björk blowing a raspberry and Damon Albarn in a school blazer, which I’m not parting with for anybody (except, possibly, a generous bidder on eBay).
Opens on 20 February at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE |
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THE OFF-MENU BURGER AT DOVE
One day, when you least expect it, the TopJaw lads will corner you in a dark alley, shove a camera in your face and ask a simple question: what’s the best burger in London? You could say The Plimsoll pub in Finsbury Park, or Supernova in Soho, and leave with your dignity/knees intact. But you’d be wrong. The best burger in London is currently scribbled on the blackboard of Jackson Boxer’s new Notting Hill restaurant, Dove — and this is no smash burger, but a return to the big, juicy gourmet patties of days past. It’s an off-menu item, but that’s because there are only 10 available on any given day, and it’s all quite elaborate: a mix of 50-day-aged rib-eye cap, brisket, chuck and suet, with a Lyonnaise sauce (white onions cooked for six hours in caramelised butter and Champagne), as well as melted Gorgonzola, cradled by a bun toasted in aged beef fat. In short, a burger that’s worth the hype. Nick Pope
Dove, 31 Kensington Park Road, W11 2EU. For even more great burgers, you can read our selection of some of London’s best here.
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“I caught two of Tyler Perry’s fish” |
Actor (and keen angler) Anthony Mackie recalls a slippery — but successful! — day on set of ‘Captain America: Brave New World’, which was partly filmed at Tyler Perry’s studios. Mackie reveals more behind-the-scenes stories from the Marvel movie, which is in cinemas today, in the latest episode of Esquire’s Freeze Frame series. Watch it here.
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THE WHITE LOTUS
It was around the second or third episode of the new season of The White Lotus — you know how time gloops mid-holiday — that I began to feel a little, hm, what’s the word? Brainless. Not exactly brain-dead, because show creator Mike White’s ear for dig-laden dialogue is still intact and his eye for relationship dynamics remains clear, but I was just completely… without brain. The series, which as you probably know is set in a high-end hotel and revolves around a mix of privileged and less privileged, awful and slightly less awful characters, now moves along so smoothly, exists with such little friction that you too feel like a guest of this resort, eavesdropping and judging poolside, mojito in hand, motivation at a sub-zero level and a brain that has, three sips ago, completely shut off. Fine, even desirable, for a holiday, but what do you want out of a television show? Read Henry Wong’s full review here
Airing weekly on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV from 16 February |
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Image credits: Esquire; Jon Stich; Dove; HBO |
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