There are no star ratings in the reviews in The Critic, which means I can get away without one too. (Ner ner.) It starts off being about what it is to be a theatre critic in the interwar period but ends up being about corruption on the part of Jimmy Erskine (Sir Ian McKellen), who talks an actress called Nina Land (Gemma Arterton) to seduce the proprietor of the newspaper Erskine writes reviews for. The Daily Chronicle, whose executive chairman is Viscount David Brooke (Mark Strong), is undergoing some changes following the death of David’s father, who didn’t relinquish control before his passing. Brooke the Younger is unhappy at Erskine’s acid-tongued reviews, even though they are appreciated by the Chronicle’s readership as well as by people in the theatre industry.
Land’s mother, Annabel (Lesley Manville), persuades her – that is, Nina Land – to confront Erskine after a particularly nasty review that remarked extensively on Land’s supposedly piss-poor acting ability. She initially resists, saying (rightly!) that it isn’t the done thing, but Annabel feels Erskine has crossed a line. Erskine puts it to Land that more favourable reviews can be done but only if Land has an affair with Brooke. Land eventually agrees, such is Erskine’s standing, and true to his word, there’s a glowing appraisal of her performance the next time around.
Oh dear. Things don’t end well for most people. Stephen Wyley (Ben Barnes) is Land’s would-be lover, though Land started expressing a lack of interest in pursuing whatever their relationship was even before Erskine’s Faustian bargain came along. His father-in-law is one Viscount David Brooke. Brooke is taken by his own hand, while Land is taken by Erskine’s. Land, having drunk heavily, turns up at Erskine’s house, and he initially tries to sober her up by running her a cold bath but ends up drowning her in it when she threatens to “go to Cora” (Romola Garai), Brooke’s wife. Erskine’s assistant, Tom Turner (Alfred Enoch), confesses all to Mary Brooke (Claire Skinner), the new new proprietor and chair of The Daily Chronicle, and in the end, Erskine is charged and found guilty of murder.
There is, perhaps because of the stellar cast, some entertainment value in this rather bleak and unpleasant storyline. There is some favourable treatment given to critics from national newspapers to this day, even though, being more generalist publications than dedicated online theatre sites, they can sometimes pull their critics out of reviewing a show at the last minute, because something else needs to be covered – anything from a live music concert to an art gallery opening to an outdoor festival. By way of specific example, in the theatre industry alone, the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) clash diary lists, for Thursday 10 October, press nights for The Fear of 13 at Donmar Warehouse, The New Real at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Signal to Noise at Southbank Centre, Trouble in Tahiti / A Quiet Place at the Royal Opera House, La Traviata at Glyndebourne, Gay Pride and No Prejudice at the Union Theatre, and Tink at The Other Palace Studio.
From time to time people ask how I decide which ones to see and which ones not to. In the first instance, it’s a case of personal interest, and if I’m sufficiently intrigued by a press invitation, and I have the date available, I’ll put myself down for it. After that it’s a matter of filling in gaps by seeing what invites there are and what the least worst ones are. And planning for the Edinburgh Fringe is a whole other process which I won’t even bother going into here, not least because I’ve digressed significantly from my thoughts about a movie.
But my thoughts digressed even while watching it, because the film spends so much time either indulging in infidelity or otherwise talking about it that it’s unlikely there’ll be a stage adaptation any time soon – it starts off well but becomes rather conventional and one-dimensional. The body count doesn’t end up as high as the strenuous efforts on Erskine’s part to keep his job might suggest. Erskine does get his just desserts in the end, I suppose, even if it all felt rather unnecessary.
(Oh go on then. Three stars.)
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