Nicholas Hytner's blast against dead white male theatre critics seems to have provoked some washing of dirty linen in public on the Guardian website, with No 1 drama critic Michael Billington and No 2 drama critic Lyn Gardner lobbing overpriced icecreams at each other from the back of the stalls. Billington (who has been reviewing since the early 1970s and who combines fairness with the kind of tastes that I mostly share) began this particular theatrical spat a few weeks ago by criticising Hytner's regime at the National Theatre for neglecting the classics in favour of too much experimental new work. There have been a few duds recently at the National, but I thought his comments a bit churlish. Hytner hit back, accusing veteran reviewers of being misogynistic 'dead white men' who have outstayed their welcome. This last accusation seemed to me quite over the top, but Lyn Gardner seems to have agreed rather enthusiastically, hinting that perhaps it's time for Billington to take his pension. Gardner says it's like the fagging system at Eton; critics 'stay in their jobs until we finally keel over in the aisle seats like budgies falling off a perch'. Ouch! Billington (without referring to his female colleague) responded icily that he would 'hang up my boots either when my editor tells me to or when I have lost my insatiable appetite for theatre'. Time for a few tranquillisers all round, I think.
Who's right in this dispute? I think the accusation that male critics such as the Guardian's Billington, the Telegraph's Charles Spencer and the Times' Benedict Nightingale are biased against women is ridiculous. The only critic I know who insists on bringing her gender into her reviews and batting for the female team is Lyn Gardner, who often insists that being a woman gives her superior insight. In fact, I think it leads her into an anti-male bias. I remember a review she wrote three years ago which dismissed an excellent new Irish play at the Traverse called Take Me Away as reactionary 'blokes' theatre'. I also saw Gerald Murphy's play during the Edinburgh Festival and thought her accusation that it had some hidden misogynist agenda was complete nonsense. However, Gardner is on sounder ground when she says that first-string critics don't get out much to see experimental theatre on the fringe, so when they are confronted with something unfamiliar they sometimes don't understand it. Perhaps I could be accused of the same thing, as most of my theatregoing revolves around mainstream theatre. But as a writer, I'm suspicious of productions which think they can dispense with playwrights and 'devise' their own shows.
What about the age issue? Director Thea Sharrock has backed Hytner for opening a debate on whether critics 'white men of a certain age' have been in their jobs too long. Unwise, I think. Anybody who complained about 'white women of a certain age' would be firmly put in their place. It's great that women directors such as Sharrock, Katie Mitchell, Marianne Elliott and Anna Mackmin are breaking through and getting the top jobs. If I were running the National Theatre, I would be more worried about the lack of black directors around than any lack of women. And if critics who stay in their jobs for too long are going to be asked to move along, what about writers and directors? Should Pinter, Stoppard, Bennett and Frayn be asked to take their pensions? And what about old Peter Brook, still directing away in his 80s?
The real problem of the British theatre, IMHO, is a lack of good new plays. There are plenty of mediocre ones around (written by men and women), and over-praising them isn't going to help anyone. Naturally, when they get put on, critics who are used to a diet of Ibsen and Chekhov don't think much of them, and say so. That may be a tough experience for the cast and directors, but they will have to live with it. Nick Hytner's reign at the National has rightly won an avalanche of critical praise, but he can't expect it to go on for ever. Thea Sharrock complains that critics' taste is predictable, but fails to understand that consistency is the quality which enables theatregoers to rely on what they write; I know that if Michael Billington enthuses about a production, there's a good chance I will be able to risk spending my money on a ticket and won't feel I have wasted £25.
One of the differences, though, is that a writer or director who stays in their (his or her!) job for ages isn't blocking others from coming up. There aren't enough sizeable openings for new work in theatre, granted, but there are far more than in the area of criticism at comparable levels.
Mind you, when I said that in a Theatre Record editorial a couple of years ago, there was a sudden news kerfuffle almost of the size that's greeted Hytner's remarks, alleging that I was calling for compulsory retirement and moreover doing so because I wanted one of their jobs. (Feel free to interpret my perspective on this matter in the light of the fact that I've now got one!)
Other than that, though, I can't think of a single damned thing to say in mitigation of Hytner's remarks. They seem to me to be utter tosh, and surely deliberately provocative tosh, because I refuse to consider the possibility that he actually believes them.
Another thing that Lyn Gardner seems not to take into account - surprising, really, in the light of how long she's been the Guardian's number two - is that the main reason senior critics don't get out around the fringe is that they're EXPECTED rather to cover the main events. It's part of the job; it's what, as far as the editors are concerned, they pay them for. As I've gradually ascended over the years from a protege of Lyn's at City Limits magazine to the Standard's number three, to the FT's junior and now senior critic, I've often felt that I've been neglecting the fringe. (For three and half years now as editor of Theatre Record I've been running comprehensive listings, and not once in that time have I been to, say, the Union, the New End or the White Bear.) But there are shows that demand to be covered and editors who demand that they be covered, and I may not have much of a life but even I need one or two evenings off a week for things like laundry. I try to make up to some extent by blitzing the Edinburgh Fringe each year, though still not to the degree that Lyn does.
I incline to the view that Lyn's rationalisation of the seniors' perspective (ALLEGED perspective) is as confected as Hytner's outrage.
Of course, it may not just be her and Michael Billington tussling with each other. Thea Sharrock's contribution notes as a parting shot "There is one critic in particular, for example, who has never once resisted the chance to give my work a terrible review, but funnily enough she's not a 'dead white male'." I don't know who she's talking about, but it does seem oddly pointed in a piece immediately following Lyn Gardner's.
But, as your header suggests, we do love a spat among the luvvies...
Posted by: Ian Shuttleworth | May 16, 2007 at 01:40 PM