Issue 14, 2007
Prompt Corner 
You will notice a first on the page opposite: a Quote of the Fortnight whose source is not a print publication but a blog. I've experienced a road-to-Damascus type of revelation about blogs recently. I used to keep an eye on a couple of friends' efforts but no more than that; however, when the Hytner "dead white males" business blew up, it rapidly became apparent that the most animated discussion was taking place not in the pages of any established publication but in the Comments columns of a number of theatre- and culture-oriented blogs. I still generally only keep up with half a dozen or so such sites, but I've found it a predominantly liberating experience. It's not simply a matter of finding debate that is so informed and articulate continuing on a routine basis, but also being able to contribute to it myself without the sense of being "on duty" which I usually feel when writing for print
Scholarly
I've banged on time and again in these pages about journalistic reviewers' difficulties in maintaining coverage of reasonable space and intelligence in the face of an increasing "infotainment" mentality at editorial/publisher level. It's worth pointing out that there is also difficulty in the other direction: the present separation between academic and journalistic criticism, at least in this culture, means that there is a certain attitude that criticism must be scholarly in character in order to be intellectually valid.
I was talking, the evening before writing this article, with a friend who has developed a reputation as a critic of "genre" television and films (science-fiction, fantasy etc.) who is both trenchant and enthusiastic. She was remarking how her writing can come up against expectations that it carry a conventional scholarly apparatus – footnotes, the right names dropped at precisely the right points in the text to attribute every aspect of theory, that sort of thing. And that simply isn't necessary when writing for a general readership, for readers who may be perfectly intelligent but are not taking essay notes themselves. It can be the same with journalistic rather than book-length criticism; differences in culture between nations and linguistic traditions can also play a part in allowing an assumption to arise that journalistic criticism is deficient or inadequate per se.
Playfulness
This is where the blogosphere can play a magnificent role. True, it issometimes too easy to start citing names and titles as an appeal to authority in backing up one's argument, but often debate either moves too fast or is too vigorously subjected to peer review (i.e. someone will pop up to call your bluff!) for this to be the norm. Subjects are discussed in detail and usually from an informed point of view, but in plain English. (An air of social exclusivity can also hang over some sites – the ones I frequent all tend to recommend each other, for instance – but it's certainly not the case that newcomers are rebuffed.) And even when matters get abstruse, they can do so with an utterly engaging air of playfulness: anyone who has ever been at once puzzled and delighted by one of Chris Goode's theatre pieces will find much the same mixture to fascinate and stimulate in his blog Thompson's Bank Of Communicable Desire at http://beescope.blogspot.com
That is the milieu in which this issue's Quotemeisters, the West End Whingers, operate. It's instructive to see how much more substantive points they can make through blatant flippancy than some of our print reviewers manage through a smugly restrained form of it. Then again, the Whingers plainly care about their subject. This is one respect in which I think the online world may finally be beginning to shake down into some kind of reliability: the self-selection process of contribution to blogs, message boards etc is maturing. In a medium where you can see your name anywhere you care to tag it, and as easily as that, people are beginning to realise that there's therefore no reason to post in a discussion unless you have something you actually want to say about the subject. (The advent of MySpace, Facebook etc may also be helping, as people whose principal desire is simply to be seen coalesce on those forums and consequently the paths of communication elsewhere clear a little.)
Wither
All of which is the very devil for press agents, of course, as they try to decide which Web sites deserve complimentary press tickets; over the past couple of years the Critics' Circle, too, has struggled to reach its current carefully-considered ambiguous wording on eligibility for membership as regards our wired brethren and sistren. But those are our problems, and we shouldn't imagine that developments elsewhere are going to stop until we sort ourselves out
I've considered starting a blog version of Prompt Corner, and am still undecided. I fear that that sense of being on duty might come to taint my blogging, and that as I then felt more obligation to be on-target the whole time, my postings would drop off in frequency and then wither away altogether. You can see this happening on a number of sites... many of them, interestingly, in precisely that relation of being online cousins to print publications – there seems to have been an editorial decision that a Web presence of the kind was mandatory, but then the poor joumos were left with the obligation to fill the space even when nothing much was happening.
Weather
As, you may have noticed, has been the case this fortnight Nothing much happening... offstage, I mean. There hasn't been a major outcry about critics doing or not doing this or that; all the shows I've seen, I have written about in formal reviews (with the exception of The Great Theatre Of The World, about which I have nothing much to say and it is probably more politic not to say anything anyway). Charles Spencer's review of The Last Confession shades into a pessimistic view of the prospects for straight theatre in the West End, but that has not especially been taken up elsewhere to date (with the exception of – guess what? – an entry in Mark Shenton's blog on The Stage web site). Still, at least there's been enough weather to keep even the most English of us in conversation indefinitely...
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
No "At the Back" this issue
Contents / Reviews
London |
||||
AMERICAN NIGHTS: 2+2+2 / 'DENTITY CRISIS New play by Jorg Tittel / Revival by Christopher Durang |
King's Head |
6 Jul |
29 Jul |
815 |
BAGHDAD WEDDING New play by Hassan Abdulrazzak |
Soho |
3 Jul |
21 Jul |
799 |
BICYCLE UK premiere of play by Oh T'ae-sok |
Camden People's |
10 Jul |
29 Jul |
803 |
CALLING New play by Deborah Espect (Joinedupwriters) |
Old Red Lion |
10 Jul |
28 Jul |
805 |
THE DONG WITH A LUMINOUS NOSE New play by Simon Startin inspired by the poem by Edward Lear (London Bubble) |
Various parks |
4 Jul |
12 Aug |
804 |
ELLING New adaptation by Simon Bent of play by Axel Hellstenius and Petter Ness, from novel by Ingvar Ambjornsen |
Trafalgar Studio 1 |
10 Jul |
|
814 |
FOOD New play by Joel Horwood and Christopher Heimann (theimaginarybody) |
BAC |
4 Jul |
22 Jul |
805 |
THE FUTURE New play by Andrew Harrison |
Pentameters |
4 Jul |
29 Jul |
808 |
GLASS EELS New play by Nell Leyshon |
Hampstead |
9 Jul |
21 Jul |
811 |
THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD Revival of play by Pedro Calderon de la Barca, translated by Adrian Mitchell |
Arcola |
12 Jul |
18 Aug |
825 |
THE LAST CONFESSION New play by Roger Crane |
Haymarket |
2 Jul |
|
796 |
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Globe |
11 Jul |
7 Oct |
816 |
MANSFIELD PARK New adaptation by Gillian Hiscott from novel by Jane Austen (Library TC) |
Upstairs/Gatehouse |
12 Jul |
28 Jul |
808 |
MARC SALEM: MIND GAMES EXTRA Return of mentalism show |
Tricycle |
10 Jul |
29 Jul |
803 |
MISS JULIE Revival of play by August Strindberg (Phrixus Th) |
Brockley Jack |
5 Jul |
21 Jul |
804 |
NT Connections Schools/youth mini-festival – see page for full play details |
Olivier / Cottesloe |
12 Jul |
17 Jul |
826 |
OURS Revival of play by T W Robertson |
Finborough |
12 Jul |
4 Aug |
824 |
A PUBLIC KIND OF PRIVACY New play by Douglas Blaxland |
White Bear |
12 Jul |
29 Jul |
803 |
ROUGH FOR THEATRE I & II Revival of two plays by Samuel Beckett |
Arts |
10 Jul |
15 Jul |
824 |
SAINT JOAN Revival of play by Bernard Shaw (NT) |
Olivier |
11 Jul |
4 Sep |
819 |
SAVE YOUR KISSES FOR ME New play by David Kerby-Kendall (KK Prods) |
Barons Court |
5 Jul |
29 Jul |
798 |
SMALLER, POORER, CHEAPER New circus show by Acrobat (Circus Front season) |
Roundhouse |
6 Jul |
14 Jul |
813 |
SWEENEY TODD Revival of the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler |
Royal Festival Hall |
5 Jul |
7 Jul |
806 |
TORN New play by Femi Oguns |
Arcola |
4 Jul |
28 Jul |
802 |
Regions |
||||
ANIMAL FARM Revival of adaptation by Peter Hall from book by George Orwell (Peter Hall Co) |
Bath, Theatre Royal Egg |
13 Jul |
21 Jul |
842 |
DEAD WEDDING New piece by Faulty Optic (Mane. Int. Fest.) |
Manchester, Library |
5 Jul |
7 Jul |
836 |
FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS New work from Lies Pauwels (Victoria) (Manc. Int. Fest.) |
Manchester, Contact |
30 Jun |
14 Jul |
835 |
FORBIDDEN New show by Stageworks Worldwide Prods |
Blackpool, Pleasure Beach Globe |
6 Jul |
4 Nov |
836 |
INTERIORS New play by Johnny Vegas and Stewart Lee (Mane. Int. Fest.) |
Manchester, Jeffrey Parkin's house |
3 Jul |
15 Jul |
835 |
LITTLE NELL New play by Simon Gray based on book The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin (Peter Hall Co) |
Bath, Theatre Royal |
12 Jul |
28 Jul |
837 |
THE MAGISTRATE Revival of play by Arthur Wing Pinero |
Pitlochry |
6 Jul |
20 Oct |
843 |
MONKEY: JOURNEY TO THE WEST New circus opera adapted by Chen Shi-Zheng (Manc. Int. Fest.) |
Manchester, Palace |
28 Jun |
7 Jul |
827 |
PASSING PLACES Revival of play by Stephen Greenhorn |
Pitlochry |
5 Jul |
18 Oct |
843 |
THE PIANIST New play conceived by Mikhail Rudy, from memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Manc. Int. Fest.) |
Manchester, Museum of Sci. & Ind. |
3 Jul |
15 Jul |
833 |
PRETEND YOU HAVE BIG BUILDINGS New play by Ben Musgrave |
Manchester, Royal Exchange |
12 Jul |
4 Aug |
836 |
PYGMALION Revival of play by Bernard Shaw |
Bath, Theatre Royal |
13 Jul |
28 Jul |
839 |