Another perfect illustration of how consumer empowerment is steadily eroding traditional sources of expertise … this time from the world of the theatre. Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber has expressed much frustration about how his new musical, Love Never Dies, is being undermined by the comments and reviews of amateur critics on the internet.
The professional critics – termed the ‘cultural aristocracy’ by Vanessa Thorpe in last Sunday’s Observer - have joined the debate, in an attempt to defend the primacy of their viewpoint, compared with the ‘unfettered opinions’ of the digital hoi polloi. As veteran critic Michael Coveney, commented, “Everyone is entitled to their opinion but it is not criticism.”
David Cote in his Guardian threatre blog, made a typically valiant defence of his profession, even if the metaphor he uses is rather untheatrical: “We critics, reviewers, consumer reporters – call us what you will – are the dung beetles of culture. We consume excrement, enriching the soil and protecting livestock from bacterial infection in the process. We are intrinsic to the theatre ecology. Eliminate us at your peril.”
I fear the dung beetles are fighting a losing battle against this type of evolutionary process. We only need to look at the declining influence of film critics to see what is likely to happen to their profession. Only this week, Variety magazine in the US has fired both its chief film and theatre critics. It’s tough being a luvvie.