“I’ve had a great night… This wasn’t one of them!”

All too often , art critics are dismissed as being malcontents like The Muppets’ Statler and Waldorf, curmudgeonly, jaded old men who find no joy or pleasure in anything. But that’s both unfair and unhelpful.

When poring over the music press as a teen, I knew this was what I wanted to do. Some epiphany burned inside of me, encouraged by my brilliant English teacher (it’s always the English teacher isn’t it). Growing up in a small rural town was extremely stultifying; ambition is often beaten out of you. So you move to the city. This is what I did, like millions before me.

Pic: the ever brilliant Clout.

It’s a dying art. People are still, by nature, suspicious of critics. Some think we’ll look for faults and get personal (that’s not the point) others see no value in what we do. Some artists offer bribery for a decent review. We’re living in a short form, low attention span era, guided by gatekeeper culture and sponsored advertising.

So what value does arts criticism have, in these times of late capitalism and low expectations? Well, we offer up a deconstruction of ideas. We pull it all apart, the better to see how it all operates. We’re figuring out the value of everything, evaluating the jumping off point, the subtext, the why of it all. We’re giddy with obsessive rumination, drunk on ideas. We eat, sleep and breathe performance. You have to be obsessed, or else what’s the point? We’re not saying things in absolutes, or in any kind of dogmatic sense, we’re all looking for the nuance, the spaces in-between.

Pic: the glorious How To Win Against History

We’re all just scrambling to make sense of that which more often than not, seems on the surface, nonsensical. It’s not a fool’s errand, but occasionally, it may feel like it. How does heart and head connect? How do we swerve cliché? In short, when was the last time a piece of art made you shiver, reconsider your position, or weep uncontrollably? I think what I’ve just described could be love.

When all else that’s going on in the room becomes insignificant and all that counts is right there, lit up in front of you, on the stage- that’s it. Sometimes, it’s just something as trite as a great night out- but that’s rarely enough.Show us something new.