George Bernard Shaw once said, “Reviewing has one advantage over suicide: in suicide you take it out on yourself; in reviewing you take it out on other people.” Here are some treasurable examples of critics doing exactly that, from both sides of the Atlantic.
Michael Billington on The Creeper (reviewed in The Guardian on Friday February 10):
An undeniable air of mystery surrounds this 1965 piece of country-house gothic by Pauline Macaulay. Why on earth, one wonders, has anyone chosen to revive it now? And why has Ian Richardson, who should be limbering up for his Lear, selected this mothballed piece for his return to the West End stage after an eight-year gap?… If it is intended as a gothic shocker, it fails to spring enough surprises. A particular low point is reached in the second act when a mackintoshed detective arrives on the scene and, in the immortal words of Ken Campbell about rep thrillers, roams the set looking for clues. The chief consolation lies in Richardson’s performance… but, although Richardson is eminently watchable, hiring him to play Kimberly is like engaging Alfred Brendel to do a five-finger exercise…”
Kate Bassett on The Creeper (reviewed in the Independent on Sunday, February 19):
“It’s scary the way some shows worm their way into the West End, making out they’re going to be decent before proving quite breathtakingly rotten. The Creeper ought to be a forgotten gem, right? Penned in 1965 by Pauline Macaulay, it’s a domestic thriller laced with homosexual and class tensions, potentially comparable to Pinter’s The Servant and here revived by Bill Bryden with a sterling cast…. Murder-mysteries don’t come much creakier than The Creeper. It’s like some dusty revenant from regional rep, and the climactic slaughter is fantastically silly, with the killer prowling round in a Red Indian fancy-dress outfit. The acting, by contrast, is pretty impeccable… But they must just be in this for the money, right?”
Ben Brantley on the Broadway revival of Barefoot in the Park (reviewed in the New York Times on Friday, February 17):
”The mistakes begin with the wallpaper. When the curtain rises on the torturous new revival of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, the play’s eager newlywed heroine (portrayed by Amanda Peet) is discovered applying, with laborious comic inefficiency, hypnotically striped paper to the walls of her first apartment. Not to put a damper on a young bride’s early adventures in decorating, but instead of gluing on wallpaper, shouldn’t she be slapping on paint? Then at least the audience would have the diversion of watching it dry.”
