At one Gathering, we talked about what being a critic is all about. I thought about this again reading The Guardian's blog post Can theatre critics ever be objective? by Natasha Tripney. Towards the end she says:

"The most interesting critics, to my mind, are those able to partition off their inner fan without silencing it completely, those who let it out once in a while for some air and a bit of a run around. Do you agree? Or is it the role of the critic to separate themselves entirely from the fan within, to ensure a degree of remove between them and the work in order to remain as objective as it's possible to be?"

Her post is worth a read. And, I wonder how much harder 'objective' is in a small country, where so many critics know the players?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2011/jun/21/theatre-critics-...