3 Review(s)

June 1978: Frederic Raphael is in a studio for the dubbing of his television play Something's Wrong, and a routine moment is captured by his wry alertness to vanities and foibles. Ifs and Buts continues the sharply stylish extracts from the journal of time spent, in the words of the Sunday Times, with 'one eye on life's greasy pole and the other on the eternal verities'. Both, for Raphael, are subjects for curiosity, scepticism and entertainment. Ifs and Buts includes encounters with David Garnett and Rebecca West, with their still-vivid memories of H.G. Wells and Lytton Strachey, D.H. Lawrence and Bloomsbury; an account of working with Diana Dors, and of not working with Diane Keaton. Alongside are darker reflections on public and private life, on what it is to be a Jew, on terrorism and the cruelties within relationships.