Critical distance is a far-off fantasy

Critical distance is a far-off fantasy: "

Like it or not, reviewers are a living part of what's happening on stage. And when the lines blur, the results can be surprising

Many theatre professionals like to keep their distance from critics. There are actors who never read their own reviews and directors who think criticism is an irritation. In their turn, many critics refuse to socialise with the people they write about, sometimes even declining an interval drink from the publicity department, and showing no interest in the business beyond what they see on the stage.

Such attitudes contrive to give critics the appearance of objectivity. They are writing for the newspaper reader, not for the profession, and their judgment is unclouded by friendship or animosity. They are independent observers, free of influence. But how much is this an illusion? For me, the lines are blurred. It isn't only that I can offer many examples of critics and professionals mixing socially – just as I can cite many instances of actors quoting their reviews verbatim – it is also that, like it or lump it, the critic is not detached from the theatre but a living part of it. Fair enough for critics to strive to express their opinions honestly and without favour, but it is surely fanciful to imagine they can remove themselves from the equation altogether.

Three anecdotes confirm this for me. The first – and the one of which I am most indulgently proud – is the strange case of Smalltown. About 18 months ago, I wrote a review of Random Accomplice's Little Johnny's Big Gay Musical in which I observed that the writer Johnny McKnight grew up in Ayrshire and wrote about his troubled teenage years, just like playwrights Douglas Maxwell and Daniel Jackson. 'Did someone put something in the Ayrshire water 30 years ago?' I asked. Perhaps they did, thought McKnight. Having read my review, he called up Maxwell and Jackson and asked them to collaborate on Smalltown. The plot? 'Three towns in Ayrshire have been contaminated,' says the website. 'It's in the water.' My own made-to-order play tours from February.

The second anecdote – another indulgence, I'm afraid – comes from actor Gavin Mitchell. He told me last week about the effect of my 2007 review of Sleeping Beauty at the King's, Glasgow. I had suggested that Mitchell had been 'paying attention to' the comedy footwork of his fellow actor, the late great Gerard Kelly. This comment (no doubt erroneous), sparked a playful rivalry between Mitchell and Kelly and, in one particular scene, their comedy leg action became ever more absurd as each tried to outdo the other as the run went on. I only wish I'd returned to see it.

Anecdote three is from my colleague Thom Dibdin who, in his reviews for the Edinburgh Evening News and his own Annals of Edinburgh Stage website, is the only serious chronicler of the local amdram scene. Such is his presence that in last week's Edinburgh Gang Show at the King's, he was repeatedly name-checked. A Jack and the Beanstalk sketch featured a couplet along the lines of: 'This place looks terribly lived in/Just like a night on the town with Thom Dibdin.' The moral, says Dibdin, quoting a director who had once thanked him for his constructive criticism, is that critics 'are part of the process'.

As well as being mildly ego-flattering for critics, these examples remind me of the psychological phenomenon of reactivity. This describes how behaviour changes when people know they are under observation or when they are accidentally influenced by the observer. In such cases, the experiment influences its own results. In this model, the critic is not an impartial scientist, free of contamination and observing from the sanitised end of a microscope, but is actually part of the experiment. This may not be a critic's intention, purpose or desire, but it does mean the us-and-them boundary line is less clear-cut than many of us would suppose."