Who cares about critics?
All good parties should have someone along to insult the host, and Charles Dance fitted the bill perfectly when he read out some of his own bad reviews while receiving the best actor award at yesterday’s Critics Circle bash.
He reminded me of the film hunk Victor Mature who, on being refused admission to a nightclub on the grounds of being an actor, protested that he was no such thing and had the reviews to prove it.
Dance read out verdicts by myself, Charles Spencer and Robert Gore-Langton to the effect that he was no good in Chekhov, stiff as a board and dull as mud.
I see no reason why we should either rescind, or apologise for, these opinions and while I am delighted (well, fairly pleased) that Dance won the award for a decent performance in Shadowlands, I can set his mind at rest by assuring him that I did not vote for him.
Georgina Brown commended Dance for not exuding “the teeniest bit of glamour in his performance,” and I heartily concur with that perceptive judgement.
I coincided with my colleagues in only two categories: the best actress award for Anne-Marie Duff in Saint Joan, and the design gong for Rae Smith and Handspring Puppet Company for War Horse.
So, what did I vote for? Roy Williams’s Joe Guy as best play, Parade as best musical, Robert Lindsay as Archie Rice as best actor, Jonathan Slinger as Richard II for the Shakespeare prize, Nicholas Hytner’s The Man of Mode as best production, Bola Agbaje as most promising playwright and Stephen Hagan in The Giant as most promising newcomer.
There were plenty of good acceptance speeches apart from Dance’s. Patrick Stewart’s paean of praise for the critics — “You guys are really funny; Cameron should take this show out on the road” — lauded Kenneth Tynan and Harold Hobson whose notices in his youth made him want to work in the theatre. That’s the spirit, Pat.
And Arthur Smith was equally glad to be in our company. This was the sixth or seventh time he had been invited along to make us laugh. “Truly,” he said, “I am living the dream.” Jolly good thing that Charles Dance came along to wake us all up.
