The Oldie

The idea for the Oldie was cooked up 25 years ago by its founding editor, Richard Ingrams, and his much-lamented successor, the late Alexander Chancellor. Their aim was to create a free-thinking, funny magazine, a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity. The Oldie is ageless and timeless, free of retirement advice, crammed with rejuvenating wit, intelligence and delight. With over 100 pages in every issue, The Oldie is packed with funny cartoons and free-thinking and intelligent articles covering a wide range of topics – from gardening and books to travel, arts, entertainment, and so much more.

The Oldie

Among this month's contributors

The Old Un's Notes

NOT MANY DEAD • Important stories you may have missed

JEREMY LEWIS PRIZE FOR NEW WRITING 2025 How to enter

GREAT BORES OF TODAY - THE GOOD OLD BRITISH PUB

P G Wodehouse's Plum Lines

Unveiling theatre's unsung hero • Sir Donald Wolfit brought Shakespeare to the people – and breakfast in bed to Captain Peacock

Let us pray for a living saint • It's time to canonise Britain's most humiliated man – or so his wife told me

OLDEN LIFE

MODERN LIFE

Father of the TV age • A century after John Logie Baird invented telly, Malcolm Baird salutes his dad

I wanted to be a millionaire • Judith Keppel won a million 25 years ago – and it changed her life for ever

Importance of being Ernie • Ernie Wise was a brilliant straight man – and a shrewd businessman.

Words can never hurt me • Charlie Mortimer has been insulted by everyone from his dad to the Telegraph editor – and loves it

100 years of modernism • John McEwen on Britain's oldest modern-art gallery – and the astonishing masterpieces it's sold

The SAS legal eagle • After a heroic Second World War, solicitor Paddy Mayne was killed in a car crash 70 years ago. By

When two become one • After his wife died, Richard Britton went through the Hell of downsizing

Bitter secrets of Iris Murdoch's marriage • My tutor John Bayley was charming, with a tormented, envious streak

Vanbrugh Revisited • On Sir John Vanbrugh's 300th anniversary, Simon Scott Plummer salutes the baroque architect and master of the ‘Castle Air’

Avoid the Denis Healey look • Don't let your eyebrows run wild – but do dye them

Lose weight with skinny jabs? Fat chance!

Cinema Paradiso – in Maidstone • Mary Kenny is enchanted by a 1920s cinema, frozen in time in a Kent terraced house

Angel of the Church Coffee Morning • There were no punters at the white elephant stall – until I came flying to the rescue

Grey squirrels, watch out! John Humphrys is about

The strange death of broadcast news

History pictures paint a thousand words • The art of historical painting went out of fashion – and is now being revived

My candidate for the Bad Sex Prize

The Bible's message – don't be beige

Ray Brooks (1939-2025)

Bad news – or fake news? • The latest Alzheimer's tests are far from accurate

Tom Jones

Dream teen job? Working on a pig farm

READERS’ LETTERS • The Oldie, 23–31 Great Titchfield Street, London, W1W 7PA letters@theoldie.co.uk To sign up for our e-newsletter, go to www.theoldie.co.uk

Franco's reign in Spain

Down and out in Hove

Tudor pin-ups

Grecian 2025

Dying of the light

Rampant Rabbit

Commonplace Corner

RANT

FILM • THE CHORAL (12A)

THEATRE • DEATH ON THE NILE

RADIO

TELEVISION

MUSIC • JOHANN STRAUSS AT 200

GOLDEN OLDIES • RIP THE HATCHET JOB

EXHIBITIONS • WRIGHT OF DERBY:...