Observations on theatre reviewing

Now I know what it's like to be a mink attacked by a parent swan. At the Almeida theatre, as I sat in a puddle of innocence awaiting curtain-up, I came under a prolonged pecking assault from a fellow drama critic.

Georgina Brown of the Mail on Sunday is a county fortysomething who will one day make an excellent Lady Bracknell. She stomped up like Mother Grudge on a pogo stick and cried: "There you are!" And with that she started flicking me in the face - tsk, tsk, tsk, ow! - with her sharp-edged ticket.

What mortal offence had I committed? Well, I had broken the conventions of the Critics' Circle and had: a) bought myself a ticket for a show; b) gone to see a play the previous night before its official "opening"; c) given that play a thumbs-down in the Daily Mail. The play was By the Bog of Cats, an Irish-Greek tragedy. It stars the Oscar winner Holly Hunter and is on at the Wyndhams in London's West End.

The show's producer, Sonia Friedman, recently vented the theory that theatre critics should no longer attend official first nights. These tend to be glitzy events, packed with whoopers. Friedman suggested that we scribes should watch plays alongside theatregoers who have actually paid for their tickets. This seemed an excellent, anti-elitist idea: first nights, I find, do nothing to help me reach an objective view of a show. I bought myself a ticket for the first night of Bog of Cats that I could manage (officially a preview).

The explosions started about six hours after my review hit the street. Friedman erupted. It was "deeply unfair" to write about a preview, her people wailed. By not waiting for the official press night I had broken "the industry code which has always been respected". (Balls.) Other critics were telephoned to be told what a cur I was. The Society of London Theatre was beaten into shape and wrote a letter. Legal action was waved in the air.

Lord, the luvvies were cross. Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph fulminated that I was "childish" and "wrecking a perfectly good system". He is billed "Britain's top drama critic" (which seems bad luck on Michael Billington, John Gross and Benedict Nightingale). He is certainly its most patronising.

Previews used to allow actors to get a show right and give punters a cheap deal. However, my ticket for Bog of Cats, with an imperfect view, cost almost £40. The box office offered no warning that the show was less than ready. "Opening nights" have become a lie. They may help producers earn serious money from undercooked work, but should newspapers connive in such a system?

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