Journalism | Matt Boothman

Excuse me, you’re standing in my dead men’s shoes

28th January 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Theatre reviewing is a dead men's shoes business. One someone lands a chief critic position at a national newspaper, they'll traditionally hold onto that position until they're buried or senile. So for all the deputies and second-stream critics, and for all us up-and-comers watching hawklike for new deputy or second-stream opportunities, the voluntary retirement of two chief critics within a year of one another should have been a cause for...

Read more »
Launched: theblogpaper, the troll’s soapbox

25th September 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

This time last week, thelondonpaper published its last ever issue. Just one week later another publication seeks to fill the resulting vacuum.
Anton Waldburg and Karl Jo Seilern-Aspang, creators of theblogpaper, style their new freesheet "the first user-generated newspaper in the UK". Users submit articles and photos to theblogpaper.co.uk, where their content is rated out of five by the community. The highest rated content in each category is then published in...

Read more »
Reviewing the upholstery

11th September 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

I spent a pleasant hour on Wednesday experiencing Theatretank's ÁTMAN, which involved wandering the residential streets and footpaths of south Wimbledon while listening to an abridged audio version of Peter Handke's Self-Accusation.
Theatretank's mp3 player setup was one of the better ones I've come across when investigating audio-assisted productions. The player was small and simple to use and, even better, came with a lanyard, so I could hang it around my...

Read more »
Arts futurism – theatre in the newsfeeds of the future

4th September 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Arts Futurism is an occasional strand in which I discuss, based on current developments, what might be next for the arts.
So let's assume for the moment that print newspapers are, indeed, nearing the end point of a lengthy and unintended suicide at the hands of their own free online content distribution systems. Let's briefly put aside the alternative theories and concentrate on the one where the presses are silenced and...

Read more »
Rap Guide star Baba Brinkman rekindles an old debate

13th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

"Congratulations on writing the first four star review in history without a single positive adjective! Utterly unquotable, but I do appreciate the stars : )"
Baba Brinkman, commenting on MattBoothman.com
So Baba Brinkman isn't satisfied with four stars, or with the accompanying review - which was, by the way, 50 per cent longer than my editor at the British Theatre Guide recommends for a Festival Fringe review, because I didn't feel I...

Read more »
Who to follow at Fringe ‘09

7th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

If you can't make it to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year, because a banker vaporised your life savings, or because National Express couldn't be bothered to drive you up the East Coast, or because you usually live in Edinburgh and have gone on holiday to Inverness for the month, never fear!
You can recreate the experience of battling your way along the Royal Mile, accosted every other step by acts...

Read more »
The Ultimate Critics’ Pick of the Fringe – part 3

24th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Previously: Part 1 | Part 2
So why do critics bother compiling advance Pick of the Fringe Programme lists at all?
The socially acceptable reason is to provide Fringe patrons with navigation points. The programme's Theatre section contains hundreds of shows, each one summed up in maybe twenty words. That makes it difficult to sift the diamonds from the dross, especially when many of the shows are world premieres and many of...

Read more »
The Ultimate Critics’ Pick of the Fringe – part 2

17th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Previously on The Ultimate Critics' Pick of the Fringe 2009:
The 13 most anticipated shows of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as collectively selected by five major newspapers and magazines, are: Barflies, Beachy Head, A British Subject, The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church, Morecambe, Palace of the End, Sea Wall, Suckerville and The World's Wife, with two votes each; Blondes, Orphans and Theatre for Breakfast, with three votes each; and the...

Read more »
The Ultimate Critics’ Pick of the Fringe 2009 – part 1

13th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

The 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Official Programme has been available for about a month now. All the influential voices in theatre criticism have had plenty of time to comb through it and produce lists of recommendations. By analysing all these lists together, I've discovered this year's Ultimate Critics' Pick of the Fringe.
The Times, the Guardian, the London Evening Standard, the Scotsman and The List (the Scottish equivalent of Time Out)...

Read more »
The bearded man-witch doth protest too much

15th June 2009 | 21 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Followers of my Twitter stream may already know my views on responding to criticism. It's a debate most recently revived by Dame Judi Dench and Maureen Lipman, and this week I found myself on the receiving end.
A few weeks ago, I reviewed a production of Macbeth by Love&Madness at Riverside Studios for the British Theatre Guide. One member of the ensemble, actor/composer Arran Glass, took exception to my criticism and...

Read more »