Do critics — or at least do I — see too much theatre?

What constitutes a “regular” theatregoer? Is it someone who goes to the theatre once a week – or once a month? If you’re paying for your tickets, “regular” might just be as often as you can afford. Theatre critics, of course, at least don’t have to buy our tickets, and ideally we draw on as wide a range of experience as it’s possible to encompass. But from a practical point of view, there are still usually only six nights a week – or, at a push, seven, if you can find shows playing on a Sunday (invariably on the fringe) – on which to go to the theatre, and a usually finite amount of space to write it up in; so the typical marker for theatre critics is going somewhere between three and five times a week.

Most of my Sunday colleagues, with the exception of the indefatigable John Peter of the Sunday Times, stick to filling their columns with the fruits of the three things they’ve got to that week – which means that huge numbers of openings simply don’t get covered there. The quality dailies do better – particularly the Guardian, Telegraph and Times with their diligent deputies, Lyn Gardner, Dominic Cavendish and Sam Marlowe – who get out on the fringe and into the regions far more than the London-based first stringers.

Even so, it’s impossible to cover everything. Even if, as I did this past week, I went to ten shows in seven days. (But then, as one West End producer recently told me, “Mark, you’re a f*ing junkie!” Perhaps it should be my epitaph – or I should go into rehab!) Did I need to saturate myself in this amount of theatre? Perhaps not, but there are lots of bases to cover – and as a one-man band (who doesn’t have a deputy), I try to get around… and about.

There were two “biggies”, in terms of profile – Nicholas Hytner’s latest reworking of a classic play into a majorly modern one, The Man of Mode; and Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, which were essential by any reckoning. But then I also went to Hampstead for Nothing But the Truth (on a night that clashed with the Tricycle opening for The War Next Door, and if there was one, it was decisively won by Hampstead, where most of the national number one’s were in attendance rather than in Kilburn — but which I had stolen a march on by going in early, the previous Saturday); Andrea Marcovicci’s opening of the American Songbook in London cabaret season at Jermyn Street Theatre; caught up with Don Johnson going into Guys and Dolls; saw Stratford East’s return run of The Harder they Come; added in two Edinburgh transfers at Soho, Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree and Phil Nichols’ it.comeddies award-winning show The Naked Racist; saw a matinee at Richmond of the latest production from the new Agatha Christie Company, The Unexpected Guest; and also caught John Mortimer’s stroll down memory lane, Mortimer’s Miscellany, at the King’s Head. In a busy week in London theatre, all of these (except for Guys and Dolls) had also had press nights, and unless I’d done my weekend catch-up, I would never have been able to get to them all. And, for one reason, outlet or another, each were worth seeing.

I’ve not been able to give each the kind of coverage I would like to, at least not yet; but between various outlets, I managed to squeeze five of them into my weekly Sunday Express round-up; reviewed The Man of Mode and The Dumb Waiter additionally (and at greater length than I could in the Sunday Express) for theatre.com; reviewed Andrea Marcovicci for the Stage; and The Harder they Come for What’s On in London. So none of the trips were wasted.

But the job of a theatre critic (or at least this one!) doesn’t just start in the evening or even matinee: by day, this week, I was also at The Lord of the Rings launch on Thursday; and conducting interviews later after the Thursday matinee of The History Boys with Steven Webb (who plays Posner) and at Friday lunchtime with Jenny Agutter at the rehearsal rooms for Equus.

As a result, pretty much every waking hour has me immersed in theatre – when I’m not at it, I’m writing about it or interviewing people about it! Is that too much of a good thing? I’d say no: I’m the luckiest person alive! And if some would say I should get a life, I’d say that its difficult for me to imagine a fuller one!