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What's a Critic For?Dateline: 15th May, 2005One or two BTG critics, myself included, have received hate mail over the last couple of months about reviews we've written. Some have been from audience members at the shows we've reviewed but some, in spite of the long-established tradition that professionals don't respond to reviews good or bad, have come from writers or directors. And some show remarkable ignorance of what a critic is for. "You should," more than one has insisted, "be encouraging young (or regional, or experimental) companies (or writers, or directors, or whatever)." No. That's not the critic's job. The BTG will and does encourage, by giving publicity to shows and listing them in our what's on section, but that most definitely isn't the job of the critic. The critic is there to give his/her opinion of the show as (s)he saw it at the particular performance attended. That opinion is informed by the critic's experience of theatre, which may well be much wider than the experience of the average audience member and may even be wider than the writer or director or whatever. At times, of course, it isn't. I would never, for example, presume to think I have a wider experience of theatre than, say, Trevor Nunn, but I could say to him - and I am safe in saying this, as I have never reviewed any of his productions, not being London-based - that, as a knowledgeable theatregoer, I feel that he has or has not succeeded in moving me in a particular production. Are the critics' responses to a production more valid than any other theatregoer's? Only to the extent that the specialist theatre critic sees more theatre (and probably a wider range of theatre) than the average theatregoer, and thus has more to compare a particular production to. I well remember a reporter from a local paper coming out from a production about a year ago raving about a "brilliant new idea" which was that there was no scenery: the show was played on a bare stage with scene changes being indicated by a change of lighting. I had to point out that people had been doing that for forty years at least! I had had much the same response when I first saw it being done - at the Mermaid in the early sixties. Many critics - myself included - have been criticised with the words "The audience didn't agree with you". The classic case of this, of course, is We Will Rock You. Now I haven't seen it, so I can't comment on the show's merits, but I do know that it was universally panned by the critics (not the BTG: we didn't review it, not having a music theatre reviewer at the time it premiered) but, as we all know, audiences love it and it is continually playing to packed houses. The reason is obvious: the critics approached it as a piece of theatre whereas for the audience it is a vehicle for the music of Queen. If you are a Queen fan, you will love it, as a friend of mine, who has seen it at least three times and would go again tomorrow, certainly does. But even in less clear-cut cases, there may well be major differences between a critic and the audience and even between critic and critic. That is inevitable. Michael Billington hated Acorn Antiques: he didn't get it because he had never seen the TV programme. Other reviewers had and were much more positive. In fact, most of the others went on to say many of the things that Billington had about the show itself, but they had enjoyed it because of something that was essentially nothing to do with theatre, their memory of what was a very funny TV programme. But I have to repeat what I said above: the job of the critic is report on his/her reactions to the show, not just relay the reactions of the audience. One one or two occasions we have been criticised because our views and those of the local press did not agree. Why should they? We are writing for people who are very knowledgeable about theatre (yes, I'm talking about you!), who want to know how a production stacks up against others of the same type. The person from the local press, however, is writing for an audience who simply want to know "Will I laugh, cry, be scared, or whatever?" Our respective audiences have different expectations of theatre - and of critics. We are not only attacked when we are negative. I remember once receiving a furious email accusing the BTG and our reviewer Philip Fisher of being part of a worldwide conspiracy to con the public into believing that Michael Frayn's Noises Off is funny! One final comment: we were accused by one complainant that we are a "bunch of old fogeys who want to get a life". Well, we have reviewers who are in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, with two of us being over 60, so the "old fogeys" doesn't always apply! Most of our reviewers are either theatre or journalism professionals: all are undoubtedly devoted to theatre, so perhaps the "get a life" jibe does apply...
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