Away, but never far away

And secondly, that Westminster Council, facing a judicial review for their intended extension of parking restrictions in parts of the West End to midnight on Mondays to Saturdays and new restrictions being imposed on Sunday afternoons, have been forced to postpone its implementation. Let’s hope that a temporary legal hiatus becomes a permanent one, though.

A few days later, I had just arrived on Kangaroo Island, off the south coast of Australia, when I heard the news that Dominic Cooke has announced his intentions to step down from the Royal Court, which he has presided over for just seven years but has turned into, without question, London’s most exciting powerhouse of new plays. Half of my choices of the best plays I saw this year in my year-end round-up of Shenton’s Choices (published in last week’s double Christmas edition of The Stage) were premiered there — Jumpy, The Faith Machine and The Village Bike — and I could have added The Heretic too. He’ll be a seriously tough act to follow.

It’s interesting, too, in the same announcement it was revealed that Cooke’s chief administrative lieutenant Kate Horton is headed to become deputy executive director at the National, working below Nick Starr: it’s of note that a new appointment is being made at that level there with the creation of this brand-new role, but it presumably reflects not just the added workload he is now taking on, but also that she is perhaps being groomed as a possible successor.

But as much as you can stay in touch with the news from wherever you are in the world, of course the thing about the theatre is that you need to be there in person to experience it, and by being on the other side of the world, there’s a lot that I’m missing back home. One of the things I love most about London theatre is the surprises it can spring, and it’s rather wonderful that what sounds like one of the year’s best new plays crept in under the wire at the Finborough, Foxfinder, just before I left but too late for me to see.

In his Guardian review, Michael Billington put it alongside Mike Bartlett’s 13 as “the most compelling new work I have seen this year.” It only runs to this weekend, so I can only hope it gets an extended life in the New Year.

Another Billington review, for Dame Edna’s panto debut in Dick Whittington at Wimbledon, also made me sorry I was missing it: as Michael wrote, “Billed as ‘Saviour of London’, Dame Edna is a good fairy who does not so much appear in the story as above it. Descending in a possum-lined seat, she later appears perched on a flying, florally decorated hoop. ‘You may be wondering,’ she says, ‘what an international giga-star is doing hanging in mid-air in a theatre in Wimbledon”, before slyly adding: ‘I’m wondering that, too’.”

Edna, he said, was also “subverting the show by looking around her at one point and declaring with mild bewilderment that ‘the stage is crowded with nonentities in period costume’. This is panto with, believe it or not, just a hint of Brechtian alienation. Not that I’d expect them to put that on the Wimbledon billboards.”

It’s those kind of remarks, of course, that we have come to treasure Michael for. And while I have been travelling, The Guardian marked the 40th anniversary of Michael Billington as their chief critic by inviting some of the reviewed to respond to their reviews by him. David Hare’s is particularly salutary, for its grudging respect if not exactly warmth: “I never read critics unless it’s absolutely necessary. If the play’s a hit, there’s no need to, and if it’s a flop, there’s no wish to… Of course, over such a long time, you get into an unspoken dialogue with a critic. I call him Michael in these remarks, but I don’t actually know him, though we have met a few times in an embarrassing sort of way. I once deliberately opened a new play in Adelaide in order to get away from the British critics. I walked into the foyer on the first night and there he was. I felt I had to say hello, but secretly I was thinking: ‘You fly 12,000 miles and you still can’t escape’.”

A few days later, Billington answered readers’ questions in a live webchat, and some of them are very revealing. @Tootoosolid asked him, “How much has theatre criticism changed in your time at The Guardian? And do you think it’s changed for the better?” And Michael replies, “Has theatre criticism changed? Yes, in some ways for the better, in some ways not. The basic truth is that criticism, not just of theatre, is now very much a reflection of our consumerist society. The prevailing idea is that the critic exists simply to offer some idea of whether a show offers a good night out. In the past, I would say criticism was seen more as a literary essay or a display or style rather than simply a handy consumer guide. The growth of star ratings to cover most of the performing arts is proof of what I’m saying. The healthy side is that criticism is now inevitably, because of new technology, becoming more accountable and democratic. Critics have always been answerable to their readers. What is different now is the rapidity of readers’ response, and the critic’s ability to reply with similar speed. This may be time-consuming, but it’s highly stimulating and means we can all engage in a debate. Here I am now, for example, answering your and other readers’ questions, in a way that would once have been virtually impossible.”



And @Parlapipas asks, “Which other reviewers have you learnt more from and which younger reviewers have caught your eye?” and he replies, “Younger critics? All other critics at my age now seem young. But without wishing to be too invidious, I would mention Caroline McGinn on Time Out, Sam Marlowe on the Times, Claire Allfree on Metro and Kate Basset on the Sunday Independent. All women, you notice!”