On October 2, 1971, a young critic called Michael Billington sat in the crowded darkness of the Fortune Theatre. That night, he wrote his first review as chief theatre critic for the Guardian, and more than 50 years later, while retired from his weekly reviews, he’s still attending shows.
The beat has undergone several paradigm shifts in this time. Musicals became big money; the snub-nosed brutality of in-yer-face theatre has shocked and appalled in equal measure. Writers like Pinter, Churchill, Stoppard, Hare, and Bennett have transcended the fourth wall and moulded the national consciousness. The industry has opened its doors to new voices and new ways of thinking.
The practice of theatre criticism has ostensibly remained constant throughout. We diligently watch in the darkness, scribble a note or two then scuttle away to write furiously to meet a menacing deadline, avoiding eye contact with actors, directors, and writers who we assume want our guts for garters. But the art of reviewing plays has changed, many times over, and the only real constant has been Billington.
Is there any truth behind the idea of the ‘kingmaker critic’, whose opinion could make or break a production or a career?
It has long been true in New York for the obvious reason that there is one key newspaper: whoever is the critic of the New York Times has the rule of the roost. The diversity of newspapers in London meant that it was very hard for one individual to have power.
Having said that, I think there was a time when Kenneth Tynan and Harold Hobson had the power to make or break productions.
There are two reasons for this. One: how many people buy newspapers. In 1987, the national daily newspapers sold 15 million copies a day. In 2023, they sell around 4 million. So naturally, the power of the printed word has declined.
Secondly, Tynan and Hobson were writing when newspapers had weight. The daily papers were more transient, but the Sunday papers – the Sunday Times and the Observer – had a great cultural power; they were the deciders of theatre and film.
