The writing and broadcasting of Bonnie Greer, who has died aged 77, were driven by divided perspectives. Her technical experience across an unusual range of genres – drama, fiction, biography, memoir, documentary – informed her work as a wry and lively critic, especially on the late-night BBC2 cultural programmes Late Review and Newsnight Review from the 1990s onwards.
And, having spent the first half of her life in the US and the second in the UK, she was also perfectly positioned – in an era when British writers, movie-makers and artists were making much work about and for America – to adjudicate on such creative duality, as well as the escalating Americanisation of British politics. Another asset was her connections: reviewing a David Mamet play or a Madonna album, she had worked with the former in Chicago theatre and met the latter as a young music wannabe in a Manhattan apartment share.
