There’s sad news about a news man today, as personable young Tom Teodorczuk signs off from the arts correspondent’s patch on the Evening Standard to follow his lovely wife in relocating to New York where she has a new job (and a new baby, on the way). I’m going to miss him, and not just because the first time I met him he told me what a fan he was of this blog! But rather, the theatre needs its advocates in the press, fighting our corner; and the arts correspondents – who, of course, are charged with covering the waterfront of the arts from a news angle – are a very important part of that armoury. As a critic who also reports news (in an opinionated way on this blog, and elsewhere purely factually), I come into contact with most of the arts correspondents of the national papers regularly at press conferences and the like. But it’s the ones you also see regularly at the theatre that impress me – since they’re not necessarily on duty but doing it for pleasure, too.
And the two most diligent, in my experience, are The Independent’s Louise Jury and Tom. And that kind of passion – not to mention the inside-track knowledge they therefore bring to their reporting – marks them out as more than mere hacks. Of course, they have to work within the constraints of their paper’s agendas and Tom may not always get the space he deserves, but Louise constantly proves she knows her onions – and gets the access (and space in the paper) as a result. Only last week she secured a rare interview with Harold Pinter.
The importance of the arts correspondent, of course, is particularly magnified by events such as Equus that finally opened last night. With “event” theatre like this, the critics are only the afterthought – the final bit of validation that a production seeks as it hurtles across the finishing line. But along the way, it’s the arts correspondents that stock up and stir the interest in them.
You have to wonder, though, about the agenda that allows some of them to so slavishly buy into a clearly-manufactured story. When David Pugh produced the dismal Ducktastic! a few years ago – that featured a live duck – the papers dutifully reported its dramatic theft from the theatre. Even the police were apparently called. Myself, I’d have thought there was a prosecution available for wasting police time.
And yesterday’s Times reported a story of the mob scenes outside the stage door of the Gielgud nightly as the crowds gather for (another) glimpse of Daniel Radcliffe. I’ve seen this for myself, and indeed walked past the stage door on Saturday night around 11pm where a very large crowd had gathered. (It reminded me of West 45th Street when Julia Roberts was appearing there last year in Three Days of Rain – it was brought to a standstill after the show every night by the crowds besieging the stage door).
But somehow The Times got fed a story that the crowd on Saturday – the same night I walked past – was so large that it had to be dispersed by the police, and though Radcliffe was escorted to his car safely, two of his co-stars – Jenny Agutter and Richard Griffiths – were trapped inside. Producer David Pugh tells The Times, “Richard and Jenny had to get out through the side window by the box office on Rupert Street”… and adds a little ungallantly, ““You try to get Richard Griffiths out of a back window. It was a bit touch and go.”
Actually, the theatre always had well-practiced plans for dealing with the Radcliffe factor. Last week I asked someone connected to the show how they dealt with it, and was told that he comes out of the stage door every night and signs autographs for a few minutes – then goes back inside and makes an exit elsewhere through the building. So do his co-stars. I very much doubt any windows are involved in the exit strategy. But it makes a good story.
Good arts journalists like Louise and Tom wouldn’t have bought it. Lazier ones do.
