OUR GUIDE TO THE BEST CRITICS: TELEVISION, THEATRE & POP CULTURE

FUNNY, PITHY AND MERCIFUL | March 17th 2008

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In our fifth and final instalment of "Reviewers revered", Robert Butler, Simon O'Hagan and others name their favourite television, theatre and pop-culture critics. (Read our introduction to the series here, as well as our selection of favourite critics of books, films, rock music and dance, art and classical music)

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, Spring 2008

In our list below, the name at the top is the nominee, and the nominator is listed as a sign-off. For more about our contributors, see our introduction.

*****

TELEVISION

NANCY BANKS-SMITH

(The Guardian)

Along with Katharine Whitehorn and Sue Arnold, Nancy Banks-Smith made me think that being a journalist might be the thing. She has that knack of saying what everyone feels they would have said, if only they could have. She's funny and pithy, but merciful too: she treats what the critic Peter Black called "the mirror in the corner" as an exasperating, but lovable, child. ~ ISABEL LLOYD

THEATRE

MICHAEL BILLINGTON

(The Guardian, most weekdays)

Though Billington has been around the block, his undimmed belief in drama as a force for social change translates into freshly worded dispatches about everything from Pinter to farce. While others are better on bad theatre, no one is better at explaining why good theatre works. Only word of warning: don't treat him as gospel on musicals. ~ JASPER REES

After 37 years, Billington retains an amazing enthusiasm. Massively authoritative, the shrewdest of judges, the master of the overnight review, he has a rare generosity of spirit. As was once said of William Shawn, he has moral perfect pitch. ~ SIMON O'HAGAN

MARK LAWSON

("Front Row", bbc Radio 4, about twice a week)

Not an obvious choice, as he's a broadcaster and polymath television columnist. But print theatre critics in Britain are either jaded and past their best, or over-enthusiastic and not yet near it. Lawson shows an open-minded curiosity and a novelist's grasp of story-telling. He's never snobbish, always interested, and doesn't assume that his reaction is the only one worth having. ~ ISABEL LLOYD

ROBERT CUSHMAN

(National Post, two or three times a week)

Readers who remember Cushman's brilliant reviews for the Observer (he followed Kenneth Tynan-a very tough act) may have wondered what happened to him. He visited Canada, fell in love, and stayed. In 1998 he was hired (by me) for the new National Post. "I believe you are far and away better than any theatre critic now working in Canada," I told him, and he replied, "Unfortunately, you're correct." He has been proving it ever since, with wit, learning and a distinctive voice: meticulous, free from cliché, mostly positive, devastatingly dry when negative. ~ TIM ROSTRON

DANIEL MENDELSOHN

(New York Review of Books, several times a year)

A classical scholar and author of the award-winning family memoir "The Lost", Daniel Mendelsohn combines exact descriptions of the surface vivacity of a production (to borrow from Tennessee Williams) with driving analytical argument. He's particularly strong on how modern sensibilities struggle with the innate demands of tragedy, epic and satire. One 4,000-word essay begins with his own experience in New York on 9/11, then compares Aeschylus's "The Persians" (centring on the reaction of the enemy) with the more insular approach of 9/11 movies by Paul Greengrass and Oliver Stone. No contest. ~ ROBERT BUTLER

POP CULTURE

THE AV CLUB

(www.avclub.com, every day)

For the pop?culture obsessive, chancing upon the av Club--a supplement of the inspired American spoof newspaper the Onion--feels like coming home. This dangerously addictive website is updated at least once a day, and posts reviews which are often sharper and more entertaining than the films, records, books and comics themselves. The whole site has consistently high standards, but two names to keep an eye out for are Keith Phipps, the av Club's editor and most incisive film critic, and Nathan Rabin, the frighteningly prolific and hilariously scathing head writer.
~ NICHOLAS BARBER