Photo of Olivia Ovenden
Olivia Ovenden

Olivia Ovenden is a commissioning editor and writer on the Observer New Review. She commissions and edits features and interviews, as well as writing profiles, reviews and essays. She previously worked as an Associate Editor at British GQ and a senior staff writer at Esquire. Her work has also appeared in the Telegraph Magazine and the New Statesman.

Photo of Olivia Ovenden

Olivia Ovenden

Olivia Ovenden is a commissioning editor and writer on the Observer New Review. She commissions and edits features and interviews, as well as writing profiles, reviews and essays. She previously worked as an Associate Editor at British GQ and a senior staff writer at Esquire. Her work has also appeared in the Telegraph Magazine and the New Statesman.

  • Olivia Ovenden
    What to watch this week, from The Walsh Sisters to The Night Agent

    Our TV critic on the best new shows airing and streaming

    Fri, 20 Feb 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Being Gordon Ramsay is hard to stomach

    Six episodes of dull self-publicity reveal only flashes of what made the chef a brilliant baddie

    Fri, 20 Feb 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Rebecca Perry’s debut novel serves a feast for an unfit king

    This lyrical work of historical fiction transports us to a gossip-filled medieval court via the curious mind of a present-day curator

    Thu, 19 Feb 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Lord of the Flies is an anatomy of boyhood cruelty

    In Jack Thorne’s thrilling mini-series, the hardening faces of boys acting as men feel drawn from the present day

    Fri, 13 Feb 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    What to watch this week, from Lord of the Flies to Small Prophets

    Jack Thorne’s chilling take on a tale of boyhood cruelty and the Detectorists’ Mackenzie Crook strikes gold again

    Thu, 12 Feb 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    What The Brutalist film-makers did next

    Director couple Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold are on a mission to counter box office franchise churn with eccentric, low-budget projects. Cue The Testament of Ann Lee

    Thu, 12 Feb 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Will Arnett: ‘I know everything about Bradley Cooper’

    The actor on his mischievous podcast and his latest film, Is This Thing On?

    Wed, 28 Jan 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Confessions of a New England divorcee

    What happens when a 20-year marriage ends overnight? Belle Burden’s memoir Strangers captures the fallout

    Tue, 20 Jan 2026

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Anne Enright: ‘I’m constitutionally averse to misogyny’

    The Irish novelist on the legacy of #MeToo, the politics of silence, and why we should all ‘observe the cat’

    Wed, 24 Dec 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    How Simon Cowell became irrelevant

    The pop mogul is trying to reassemble his boyband machine, but culture has moved on

    Wed, 10 Dec 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Noah Baumbach wants one more shot

    The director loves to dramatise his personal life. What to make of his new film?

    Thu, 4 Dec 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    ‘My philosophy is, go for it! Squeeze the pips until they squeak’

    The actor has found a vocation playing punctilious eccentrics. Now he is in exalted company for a sobering role in a film about the Nuremberg trials

    Fri, 14 Nov 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Nicôle Lecky: ‘It’s weird when workmen ask what the awards are for’

    The writer and star of Mood opens up about her new BBC series, the effects of social media on teenagers and playing basketball with George Clooney

    Thu, 13 Nov 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    A love letter from the afterlife

    A film about her wife’s terminal cancer diagnosis has helped Megan Falley find a joy for living in the face of death

    Sun, 9 Nov 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    The last days of Pasolini

    Olivia Laing draws on the Italian director’s unsolved murder for their sumptuous second novel The Silver Book

    Thu, 6 Nov 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    The Celebrity Traitors is a show for our paranoid, tribalist age

    It’s no small wonder we identify with the players in the Traitors castle

    Thu, 6 Nov 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Why women keep secrets

    The Book of Revelations finds Juliet Nicolson exploring the history and politics of female secrecy

    Wed, 29 Oct 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Mariana Enríquez: ‘The fear of the old female body is out of control’

    The Argentinian writer on her cemetery obsession, horror’s fixation with ageing, and the novel she tossed on the barbecue

    Sun, 26 Oct 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    How daddy issues took over this year’s Oscars race

    In many of this awards season’s biggest films, emotionally repressed fathers make a big show of how they feel

    Sat, 25 Oct 2025

  • Olivia Ovenden
    Rebecca Miller: ‘I could identify with Martin Scorsese’s spiritual journey’

    The film-maker on the art of the anecdote, her playwright father and getting to know the Goodfellas director

    Fri, 17 Oct 2025

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