Back in April I posted a blog here under the headline “Is it curtain for critics?”, noticing the number of film critics that had been laid off at various American papers; and it is the same headline that The Observer used for a four-page Review section cover feature yesterday on the growth of the blogosphere.
As someone with a foot in both camps - so to speak - and was name-checked as such in the feature for, it is of course something I am watching closely. In fact, most critics are watching our backs a lot of the time - not just for the fear of a knife being plunged into it by an aggrieved theatre practitioner (or reader, if we have any) that disagree with us, but also because it has reminded us of our accountability.
When Michael Billington found himself blogging about The Sultan’s Elephant on the Guardian website in 2006, he tells Jay Rayner in The Observer that he was surprised by the reaction: “I wrote a piece attacking it and got hundreds of comments. They clobbered me. I wasn’t used to getting such a response. I was suddenly aware that there was an army of people with opinions as strong as mine. Journalists of my generation have to adapt. And we have to accept that the printed word no longer has aristocratic supremacy.”
Perhaps the feedback is unnerving (as Norman Lebrecht, himself both a journalist and regular blogger, points out in the piece: “One has to be very careful of making any comment. Bloggers are as sensitive as any diva. Criticise them and they will attack you”); but it’s also one of the best features of the blogosphere, too: it opens the arts to dialogue and discussion, with the critical word being the first, rather than necessarily the last, word on something.
But somebody has to kick start the discussion; and whether as blogger or critic, or both, that’s something I take a daily responsibility for doing here. Rayner also name-checks my colleague Ian Shuttleworth, for weighing in on other blogs; and indeed I know of no more voracious consumer of the blogosphere than Ian, who seems to pop up in the comment boxes of every blog I read - or write! (To prove it, he was second to weigh in on the Guardian’s blog about the Rayner piece). But that takes a different kind of energy: the diligent responder consumes what we write and then puts his (or her) own spin on it.
As someone who is fast approaching my second anniversary writing this blog, I know just how much time and energy it takes to write it; to come up with something fresh each day is a daily challenge (and has sometimes defeated even me). But it is one that I simply love doing, and that’s the joy of the free blogosphere, too: no one is forcing the bloggers to do it but they are doing it for the sheer pleasure of doing it.
In the bloggers corner in The Observer story, the West End Whingers state: “We were fed up of each other’s whingeing and decided to whinge at the world instead. We doubt anyone cares two hoots for our opinion. The mainstream critics still have a role - someone has to stay till the end…. We don’t really feel a responsibility to anyone. We’re just doing it to amuse ourselves and it always comes as a bit of a shock to find that anyone has bothered reading it. Would we like to be professional theatre critics? Good gracious! No! Be forced to sit through to the end? Endure the theatre without alcohol? Locate things in the wider discourse? No.”
The West End Whingers have once again got to the heart of the matter: it’s a question of responsibility, accountability and offering a wider view. Private bloggers are answerable to no one but themselves (and their own amusement); professional critics - and I include my own role as blogger here, or on The Guardian blog where I also write - are still trying to get paid for what we do, so we have to follow certain rules and responsibilities. And we still take it seriously. Someone has to: as Charles Spencer says in the Observer’s critics’ corner, “I do think the professional critic still has a place. The fact that we see everything has to be helpful. You’re supplying a service, one with real authority, and there is always going to be a place for expert opinion.”
Charlie says: "The fact that we see everything has to be helpful". At best, Charlie means "The fact that we see a lot of things has to be helpful". Surely.