The national critics have been divided over Movin’ Out, the Twyla Tharp choreographed “dansical” (to music by Billy Joel) that opened at the Apollo Victoria on Monday: divided, that is, into dance and theatre camps, with four dance critics reviewing it relatively unfavourably (Guardian, Times, Independent, Standard), and four theatre critics checking in, three of them considerably more favourably (the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and me). The fourth of our theatre tribe to see it so far was Alastair Macaulay of the FT, who told me afterwards that he detested it “with a passion bordering on the sublime”.
Theatre and dance critics might understandably come at this show from rather different perspectives – theatre critics may not be qualified to talk authoritatively about the nuances of the dance vocabulary, though we can assess its effectiveness as a theatrical language; nor can we necessarily can put it in the context of the rest of Tharp’s work, though we can look at it next to other recent “jukebox” musicals that embrace a back pop catalogue. So on the one hand we have the Guardian’s dance critic Judith Mackrell lamenting the fact that, “for those who care about Tharp, it’s impossible to ignore that it doesn’t take her choreography to any place we haven’t seen.” On the other hand, the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer, referencing “Twyla Tharp’s often thrilling choreography”, adds that “this is a show that really packs a punch.” He concludes by even anticipating the dance criticisms: “Sensitive ballet fans will doubtless find Movin’ Out appallingly loud and vulgar, but anyone with a passion for popular culture at its electrifying best will have an absolute blast.”
But Alastair Macaulay, of course, is alone qualified to do both, since he used to be a dance critic – for the New Yorker, amongst other publications – and is now a theatre critic. So I take his criticisms and the serious context he can put it in seriously. But it does raise the question: are we the eyes and ears of the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus, or are we expert witnesses, drawing off an extensive back catalogue of our own theatrical (and sometimes personal) experiences to do so? The best reviewers are a bit of both; critics who know what they like, but whose taste and judgement is known and can give their readership a guide to align themselves with.
That’s what makes Charlie Spencer’s such a respected voice, and also the Guardian’s Michael Billington: both of them put their own tastes and prejudices out there, but they support them with a passion and integrity that becomes a marker against which the reader can make up their own mind.
No critic can be an expert in everything: seeing Movin’ Out, it helps to have a passing acquaintance with the repertoire of Billy Joel, though it’s good, at least, to admit ignorance if that isn’t the case. In a website review, Michael Coveney confessed of the songs, “not one of which I recognised apart from the mildly irresistible Uptown Girl”. Charles Spencer – probably the biggest pop fan amongst the national critics, whose tastes tend to lean towards the more classical – admitted that he had “seriously undervalued” Joel: “I was amazed to discover that I knew most of the 20-plus songs included here without ever quite realising that I did, as if I had somehow absorbed them by osmosis.”
