Writing in the Dark: Fifty Years of British Theatre Criticism

In NTQ50 (May 1997) Irving Wardle offered his reflections on forty years of theatre reviewing, from the point of view of the seasoned practitioner. Here, Ian Herbert looks at the craft of the reviewer in the wider context of the British theatre since the war, and sees an ironic similarity between the venerable, gentlemanly generation against which Kenneth Tynan pitted his considerable wit, and the generation of Tynan's disciples now no less firmly entrenched in their seats on the aisle. His article, first presented as one of the public lectures celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the Society for Theatre Research on 15 January 1998, is as much an informal history of London theatre during the period as a discussion of the part played in it by the members of the Critics' Circle drama section, of which he is currently secretary. Having completed the last of three editions of Who's Who in the Theatre to appear under his editorship, in 1981 Ian Herbert, started London Theatre Record, now Theatre Record, the fortnightly journal which gathers together the unabridged reviews of all the major British theatre critics.