Michael Billington | |
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 Billington in 2010 | |
| Born | Michael Keith Billington (1939-11-16)16 November 1939 (age 86) Leamington Spa,Warwickshire, England |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Warwick School |
| Alma mater | St Catherine's College, Oxford (BA) |
| Period | 1961–present |
| Genre |
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| Notable works |
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| Notable awards | Theatre Book Prize |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
Michael Keith Billington (born 16 November 1939) is a British author and arts critic.[1] He writes forThe Guardian, and was the paper's chiefdrama critic from 1971 to 2019.[2] Billington is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts. He is the authorised biographer of the playwrightHarold Pinter (1930–2008).[3][4][5]
Billington was born on 16 November 1939, inLeamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, and attendedWarwick School, an independent boys' school inWarwick.[6][7][8] He attendedSt Catherine's College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, where he studied English and was appointed theatre critic ofCherwell.[9] He graduated with a BA degree.[8][10]
As a member ofOxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), in 1959, Billington played the Priest inThe Birds, byAristophanes, his only appearance as an actor,[11][12] and, in 1960, he directed a production ofEugène Ionesco'sThe Bald Prima Donna, a performance of which was attended byHarold Hobson, the drama critic forThe Sunday Times.[10] Although it won "an Oxford drama competition" and was an entry in that year'sNational Student Drama Festival (NSDF 1960), which Hobson had co-founded in 1956, Billington's directorial debut was not well received at the Festival, yet Billington credits Hobson with having "changed my life".[10] After the Festival, he decided to forgo pursuing a career as a theatre practitioner to "follow" Hobson's "footsteps" and become a critic of theatre too; five years later, they would become colleagues atThe Times.[10]
After leaving Oxford in 1961, Billington began working as an arts critic in Liverpool for theLiverpool Daily Post & Echo.[8] From 1962 to 1964, he served as public liaison officer and director for theLincoln Theatre Company, inLincolnshire.[7][13] From 1965 to 1971, he reviewed television, films, and plays as an arts critic forThe Times; from 1968 to 1978, he was also film reviewer for theBirmingham Post, and from 1968 to 1981, forThe Illustrated London News.[4][7] In October 1971, he leftThe Times to become theatre critic forThe Guardian.[3] Beginning in the 1980s, he was a London arts correspondent forThe New York Times,[14] and, since 1988, he has also served as drama critic forCountry Life.[4][7]
Billington's broadcasting career had begun by 1965.Philip French, then a BBC radio producer, asked him to review two short radio plays by the then virtually unknownTom Stoppard which were being broadcast on theBBC Third Programme.[15] Later, he was a presenter (and participant) inCritics Forum (Radio 3), which ended in 1990, and theKaleidoscope arts programme (Radio 4). He has contributed to other British arts and drama radio and television programmes.[7]
Billington blogs forguardian.co.uk and previously also blogged forWhatsOnStage.com. Billington left his role asThe Guardian's chief theatre critic at the end of 2019, although he continues to write for the newspaper.[2]
Billington has taught in theUniversity of Pennsylvania's Penn-in-London program since at least as early as 1997, and he teaches courses in theatre atKing's College London, where he has been a visiting professor since 2002.[4][16][17]
After attending the December 2005Nobel Banquet, inStockholm, on the occasion of Harold Pinter's being awarded theNobel Prize in Literature, Billington attended the international symposium "Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics", which he had organised, in part celebrating Pinter's being awarded theEurope Theatre Prize, inTurin, Italy, in March 2006.
In April 2007, Billington presented an invited paper on "Is British Theatre As Good As It Claims?" to theElizabethan Club, atYale University, inNew Haven, Connecticut, prior to moderating a panel discussion at the conferenceArtist and Citizen: 50 Years of Performing Pinter", atLeeds University, where he attended and later reviewed the productionBeing Harold Pinter, by theBelarus Free Theatre.[18][19]
Billington is the author of several biographical and critical studies of subjects relating to British theatre and the arts, including books aboutPeggy Ashcroft (1907–1991),Tom Stoppard (born 1937), andAlan Ayckbourn (born 1939). He also wrote the official authorised biography of 2005Nobel Laureate in Literature prizewinnerHarold Pinter (1930–2008), which first appeared in 1996.
In March 2007Faber and Faber published Billington's bookState of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945, which won the 2007 annualTheatre Book Prize fromThe Society for Theatre Research, presented to Billington by SirDonald Sinden on 1 April 2008.[3][6][20][21][22] Billington has spoken about the book at various venues, including theWarwick Arts Centre at theUniversity of Warwick,[5] and has reviewed his reviews.[23]
Following Pinter's death on 24 December 2008,The Bookseller reported thatFaber and Faber planned "to rush out an updated version" ofHarold Pinter, "which will take account of the international response to Pinter's death, ... at the end of January [2009]" and that it "will be released first as ane-book."[24]
As a director his work also includesThe Will byMarivaux at theBarbican Conservatory, London, with an ensemble from theRoyal Shakespeare Company in 1987;Pinter'sThe Lover andStrindberg'sThe Stronger at theBattersea Arts Centre in 1997, and in 2008 at the MacOwan Theatre, Kensington, Pinter'sParty Time andCelebration with students from theLondon Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.[25][26][27]
Billington lives inChiswick, London, with his wife, Jeanine Bradlaugh; the couple have one daughter. Billington is a supporter of theLabour Party.[4][28]
In fiction, Billington's name was introduced inDeath of a Hollow Man byCaroline Graham, later adapted for theMidsomer Murders television mystery series, in which DCI Tom Barnaby coaxes deluded local director, and double murderer, Harold Winstanly into accompanying him to the police station by suggesting Michael Billington and journalists from various respectable publications would be waiting to discuss his work.[29]
Billington was made anhonorary fellow ofSt Catherine's College, Oxford, in 2005[8] and was awarded an honorary doctorate by TheUniversity of Warwick in July 2009.[30]
He was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the2013 New Year Honours for services to the theatre.[31]
A new history of British theatre explores the relationship between theatre and politics.[Book rev.]
'In my second year at Oxford, I couldn't decide what career to pursue: I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be a director or a critic.' By the end of the festival Billington had decided to follow in Hobson's footsteps; in 1965 he started working at the Times as a theatre, film and television reviewer. In 1971 he became drama critic for the Guardian, where he has remained ever since. Of Hobson, Billington says simply, 'he changed my life'.
When I worked atLincoln Theatre Royal in the early 1960s....
The centerpiece of the program is the Penn Theatre course (ENGL068). Participants study with the renownedGuardian theater critic, Michael Billington, and visit the theater weekly as part of this course.
Fall 2006[Schedules of past academic semesters listed in reverse chronological order].
We all love seeing our work praised, but I most relish the well-aimed critical arrows. Honest.(7 moderated comments, with "comments now closed.")
[Correction by Peter Scott:] Pinter was born in 1930, not 1939.
