\nBritain you have to have been a regularly published critic of the theatre,
\nmusic, dance, cinema or visual arts for at least two years. It’s a handy form
\nof accreditation and, unlike the way theatre and film people and musicians are
\norganized, it has no aspect of trade unionism, and so is non-political and
\nuncontroversial – for the most part.
In Eddie Redmayne at Awards Ceremony 24 January 2012<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There were the stars of the Best New Play Glamorous Unlike In It’s But That <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To be a member of the Critics’ Circle in Britain you have to have been a regularly published critic of the theatre, music, dance, cinema or visual arts for at least two years. It’s a handy form of accreditation and, unlike the way theatre and film people and musicians are organized, it has no aspect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-bZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\naddition to the Critics’ Circle overall annual award to a practitioner of one
\nof the arts, some of the five sections listed above give their own awards.
\nYesterday was the grandest occasion, the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards for
\n2011. The Prince of Wales Theatre in the
\nWest End was crammed with faces familiar from screens as well as from behind
\nthe footlights, as so many starry British film and television actors now seem
\nto relish doing live theatre.
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Eddie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/Eddie%20Redmayne%20images.jpg?resize=176%2C147\")
<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n(“One Man. Two Guv’nors” in Richard Bean’s cosmically funny take on Goldoni)
\nincluding James Corden, Eddie Redmayne was there to receive a medal for his
\n“Richard II”, Sheridan Smith won best actress for “Flare Path” and only
\nBenedict Cumberbatch was notably absent, filming in Canada. Danny Boyle
\ncollected his gong.
\nthough it was, there was something worrying when the chairman of the drama
\nsection, Mark Shenton, read out – before each award – the names of those (or
\nsome of those?) also nominated for the award. Sometimes the list was so lengthy
\nthat you had to suspect that almost every eligible critic had nominated someone
\ndifferent. That in itself is fine and healthy. But what bothered me was that
\nthere is only one round of voting; so some of the award winners must have had
\nonly a handful of critics voting for them – or even only two or three.
\nmost of my colleagues (though I know of at least one who is in a similar
\nposition) I am – how to put this delicately?- not a full-time theatre critic.
\nIn my day job, freelancing as the culture critic for The Wall Street Journal Europe<\/i> and for the online wsj.com, I review
\nall the performing arts, especially theatre and opera, and also the visual
\narts. I have done this job since the 1990s, and I believe I have the
\ndistinction of being the only critic in the country who is a member of three
\nsections of the Critics’ Circle – drama, music and visual arts.
\nshort, I cannot possibly get to see every new theatre production. Even so, I
\nsee so many every year that, when voting for awards comes around in late
\nwinter, I have trouble remembering what I have seen, and which of those
\nproductions is eligible. At yesterday’s awards a colleague who sees a play
\nalmost every night of the week confessed to me that he had the same problem.
\na strength of the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, and one of the features that
\nmakes them so valuable to their recipients, that there’s only the single secret
\nvote, no long list, no shortlist, – so
\nno horse-trading or even campaigning is possible.
\nnow I’m beginning to feel that the system needs a tiny reform. Would it really
\nmake any difference to the cachet of the awards if, before voting, we were
\nsimply given a list of productions and people eligible for the awards? I can
\nsee that that means a lot of work for someone, but as the sponsor, the firm of
\nLondon showbiz accountants, Nyman Libson Paul, is so generous in the provision
\nof food and drink, I wonder whether they wouldn’t be prepared to put up a small
\nfee for someone to do the necessary research?
\nwon’t solve my other problem, that I failed to see several of the award-winning
\nproductions and performances – but that’s a reflection of when space is
\navailable in the paper, and sometimes merely of my poor predictive powers. I’m
\nvery glad indeed that my colleagues gave the Most Promising Playwright and Most
\nPromising Newcomer to people I didn’t know, respectively Tom Wells and Blanche
\nMcIntyre, both working in London’s fringe theatre. This is exactly as it should
\nbe.<\/span><\/p>\n