Mad men

If you were one of the many millions who watched Top Gun: Maverick this year, it may have been a pleasant surprise to see Jon Hamm in the (admittedly thankless) role of Vice Admiral Simpson, who has to look stern and angry at the various transgressions committed by Tom Cruise’s protagonist. Hamm has been cornering the market in these sorts of roles thanks to his appearance of square-jawed rectitude. He is a natural fit for FBI agents, police detectives, and, indeed, vice admirals. But it was a different kind of vice altogether that he followed in his best-known and most beloved role, that of the dynamically charismatic – yet entirely

This week Mad Men celebrates the 15th anniversary of the show’s debut. Elmer Wheeler’s famous phrase about the science of advertising holds as true today as it did when he originated it almost a century ago: ‘Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.’ Matthew Weiner’s series cast the advertising profession under a jaundiced eye, examining the mores and morays of Madison Avenue advertising executives from 1960 to late 1970. The show made Jon Hamm (as Don Draper aka Dick Whitman) a star, as well as boosting the careers of other regular cast members including Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Jared Harris, and Christina Hendricks. It would be fair to say that