Critique

A blog that often grabs my attention is that of the Guardian's (I know!) I think it's quite a clever idea for such a well established publication to tread into the medium of blogging like so many others and it works particularly well with the theatre&performingarts section

I was reading it today and just noticed how much negativity is given to the arts critics! Man am I glad that I live in the non-paying blog world where my opinions go generally unnoticed and I can critique theatre in a crude and amateur fashion till the cows come home.

What entered my head though is if everyone is really determined to go against them, how useful are the arts writers and critics today? We have endless resources on the internet now to discuss plays and what have you, are we really dependent on the judgement of a good critic to help us assess what we are seeing? Maybe not but I think they still play a huge and important part in the arts world... even if it is just to allow us to get all uppity and disagree! A review can make or break a play, film, performance and it is actually rather difficult to view such a thing objectively and write as such; looking on all aspects of the performance that an 'untrained' audience member's eye may not pick up on. They provide the bare bones for our discussions and, if they are good, help to challenge us on what we are seeing. Can't be all bad can it?
Until then I am just grateful that the wider public hasn't found my blog to tell me how wrong I am

xx