'How could my words have made someone feel so terrible?'
The agony of bad reviews when you're a critic - and also a born people-pleaser
By Anya Ryan
It is Saturday night and I am at a party full of strangers, far away from the theatre stalls. Music is blaring, drinks are flowing and the friend I’m supposed to be with has just disappeared into a mass of people and darkness. Now, I have no choice but to face the ever-daunting task of trying to make a good first impression.
Tonight, my subject is Maddie – a girl who lives in South London and, I later learn, works in an art gallery. Our conversation follows the usual introduction routine: hellos, how-are-yous, the swapping of who we know here and how – and then the big one. “What do you do?” she asks innocently.
“I’m a theatre critic,” I reply.
“Oh wow, you must be pretty heartless to do that”.
By now, this is a quip I’m used to. After all, a critic, by definition, is someone who finds faults in things. And I know full well what artists think of people who do jobs like mine. We’re judgemental, unkind and outspoken. There’s the suspicion that we don’t even really like theatre at all. But, still, every time I am greeted with the same assumption, I can’t help but wonder. Is it actually true? Does being a critic mean I’m cold and soulless?
It is a confusing hypothesis because in my personal life, I’m desperate to be liked. I’m a chronic people-pleaser. I relish the feeling of connecting with new people, finding common ground, and building new relationships. The thought of conflict brewing between the people closest to me makes my stomach churn. I’m the kind of (dreadful) person who prefers to ignore messages from friends rather than replying to let them down. So, then, how do I manage to detach so easily professionally?
The truth is, when I first started reviewing in 2021, I didn’t. I felt the tension of trying to please and write my opinion honestly acutely. I’d stay up late into the night, agonising over whether certain lines were too cruel to be published and I felt deep, overwhelming guilt if I ever gave a star rating below a four. The idea that certain actors, writers or directors could now hate me would linger in my mind long after a review had gone to print.
But, as time has passed and I’ve become more accustomed to the routine of a critic, I’ve hardened. Being truthful is part and parcel of the job, I tell myself. We write reviews for the public to read and get advice from, not for the people who make the shows.
I’d reached a stage of relative contentment. But then, in December, I got three emails that made me sweat. Each was from a creative, friend, or family member of someone involved in something I’d reviewed. Two of the emails took issue with the words I’d chosen to describe a particular element of a production in write-ups that were otherwise positive; immediately I felt the fear pumping through my veins, but I stood by what I thought. But one was a lengthy email from a comedian, who I’d reviewed two years previously, explaining how my two-star review of her show had sent her on a spiral of self-doubt.
The email was polite, warm and self-deprecating – the comedian had reached out to me as a courtesy to warn me of her plans to talk about the experience onstage in a show she is currently workshopping for the Edinburgh Fringe. She said she didn’t plan to name me and even pointed out that my review of her show was surprisingly nice! But, needless to say, the people-pleaser in me felt awful. How could my words have made someone feel so terrible? My heart raced; had I finally been called out?
Honestly, I couldn’t remember a single thing I’d written. Live performance, by nature, is fleeting, and accordingly, criticism of it – for the writer at least – feels transient. We’re given a matter of hours to make up our minds and then release our thoughts into the world. This need for speed was raised at the Critics’ Circle awards last week by Jay Miller, artistic director of The Yard, arguing critics should get longer to craft responses to work. But in the current climate, a review has to be a quick and savage act, and one that for me relies wholly on gut instinct.
After getting that email from the comedian, I started to doubt my own opinion on her show. I read the review back obsessively, searching for a sentence that might have gone just a little bit too far. Of course, I then replied to her email to say how great it was she’d got in touch with me and some lengthy waffle about how no-one’s opinion actually matters! Basically, trying to wriggle away from the conflict with a half-hearted apology…
But this interaction did make me stop and think. The reason I wanted to be a critic was to be part of a bigger conversation. And, if I am to believe in criticism as a meaningful and necessary part of the wider theatre industry, then I have to accept that reviews are not where opinion ends. People are likely to be at least slightly annoyed, hurt or disappointed if their hard work is slated in the press, and backlash or differing thoughts to mine are both inevitable.
And yet confrontation is something I work so hard to avoid in my personal life – and that spills into my life as a critic as well. On seeing people whose work I’ve given a bad review to, I consciously look the other way to avoid their gaze. Once, while at the National Theatre, a fellow critic and I left with our heads to the ground after seeing a director whose play we’d both been slightly less than complimentary about the previous week.
How do I deal with the dissonance of being a professional complainer and a natural people-pleaser? By acting like a coward.
Recently, during a panel talk with other people in the theatre industry, I lamented that being a critic is an often lonely, isolating job. I sometimes go a whole day without uttering a sentence to anyone! At press nights, I stare longingly at the huddles of actors or writers hugging and gossiping happily. “I wish I knew more people who work in other areas of the industry,” I said – the other panellists looked back at me blankly.
Because the truth is, no one wants to befriend a potential Judas. In Edinburgh a few years ago, a director who I’d been chatting to said to me mid-conversation, “I can’t get too close, you could stab me in the back at any moment” – and it’s true. A critic isn’t a collaborator or confidant. We are not there to please people. Our job is to observe, assess and write candidly. It’s a huge privilege – but one that comes at a cost.
Yet the people reading criticism often experience the opposite of the process you are describing. One of my best mates is Andrzej Lukowski. He has no idea who I am but through finding his opinions so often chiming exactly with mine, I have come to know and intensely like him. Perhaps critics should seek support groups of people who appreciate and are pleased by their work !