Well, it turns out up-and-comers like me aren’t the only ones concerned by the trend:  some of the country’s most influential theatre critics also expressed reservations about the appointments last Friday, at Theatre Critics In The Spotlight, a panel discussion hosted by The Student Workshop of Royal Holloway, University of London (pictured).

Even before the panel hosts - Royal Holloway lecturer and Variety theatre critic Karen Fricker, and Student Workshop Creative Learning Officer Sheryl Hill - formally posed the question, panellist Mark Shenton - critic for the Sunday Express and daily blogger for The Stage - repeatedly brought up the topic.

In Shenton’s view, the trend is a cost-saving measure, symptomatic of the problems facing the newspaper and media industry as a whole.  His fellow panellist Kate Bassett, lead critic for the Independent on Sunday, pithily summarised those problems, saying, “Newspapers don’t know how to make money any more”.

Shenton explained that papers could avoid paying an extra salary by simply adding theatre criticism to the duties of an existing member of staff, adding that editors no longer consider theatre criticism to be a full-time occupation.

Ian Shuttleworth of the Financial Times recalled - enlighteningly, for those of us relatively new to the business - the appointment of former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Michael Portillo as theatre critic for the New Statesman, which he considers to be the beginning of the trend.  Worryingly, he also pointed out that his own promotion to lead critic at the FT is the only instance in living memory of a retiring lead critic being replaced by their number two at the same paper - most second-stringers have to defect to a different publication in order to secure a top slot.

Lyn Gardner, critic and blogger for The Guardian, concluded the discussion with this bleak yet matter-of-fact premonition of the industry’s future:  “I fully expect my job will one day be done by Katie Price”.

…all right, you’ve caught me; that was a test.  If you found yourself showering that paragraph in indignant spittle then give yourself a pat on the back and move on.  If, on the other hand, you found yourself nodding in agreement, keep reading:  this article is for you.

I’m taken by surprise on a regular basis by people (theatre people and ‘normal’ people alike) who have no idea that there are theatres in pubs.  It surprises me because I see plays staged in little studios above or behind London pubs all the time (I’m the British Theatre Guide’s current go-to guy for pub theatre), and because they seem to me to be such a winning formula.

In this city at least, pub theatres (and theatre pubs - there’s a delicate distinction) are everywhere.  The tickets and the drinks alike are affordable.  There’s none of that gin-quaffing air-kissing atmosphere that puts so many people off the theatre.  The sets and lighting are often basic, but that encourages directorial innovation, and there’s a wealth of interesting, well-performed work to be found as a result.  So how come everyone I talk to reacts like pub theatre is London’s best-kept secret?

I think it’s largely a marketing issue.  The first time I visit a particular pub theatre I often realise I’ve walked past the pub before without realising there was a theatre in it.  From the street, the only evidence that - for instance - the Oxford Arms in Camden also houses the Etcetera Theatre is a sandwich board in the porch.  Presumably the publicans are worried pub-only punters could be put off by the thought of sharing the bar with a bunch of ginned-up luvvies.

Equally, while they don’t deliberately obscure the fact, few theatres make a selling point of being situated in a pub.  It’s possible to book online and turn up at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington and only then realise it takes its name from the pub it’s attached to; likewise the King’s Head or Hen and Chickens in Islington.  The name ‘Theatre503‘ in a listing or review does not immediately suggest a connection to the Latchmere pub in Battersea, and the Greenwich Playhouse’s website studiously avoids mentioning that it can only be accessed through an O’Neill’s.  They seem to want to be defined as theatres that happen to share premises with a pub, rather than the joint entity ‘pub theatre’.

It’s like the pubs and their theatres are determined to be the awkward bedfellows they are on paper - in which case we need to be the mutual friends determined to show them how perfect they actually are for one another.  No one’s consciously keeping people in the dark about the pub theatre movement, but people are in the dark nonetheless, and that benefits nobody.

The winner of the Audience Award for Most Popular Long-Running Show of 2009 is determined by the votes of the general public - the first time an Olivier Award winner has been decided by anyone outside the Society of London Theatre.  The first round of voting whittled a long-list of 20 eligible productions down to just five.

Those five are (in alphabetical order):  Billy Elliot - The Musical, The Phantom of the Opera, War Horse, We Will Rock You and Wicked.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the enduring popularity of We Will Rock You, Ben Elton’s nonsensical jukebox musical featuring the music of Queen - but popular it is, and acknowledging popularity rather than critical acclaim is the point of the Audience Award, so I suppose I must grudgingly admit that it deserves the nod (while simultaneously grumbling under my breath that plenty of shows on the longlist managed to be both phenomenally popular and good theatre at the same time).

What is heartening about the shortlist is the eerily perfect proportional representation of musicals and “straight” theatre.  The longlist consisted of 16 musicals and four plays - an 80-20 split, if you want to talk percentages.  The shortlist contains four musicals and one play, War Horse - another perfect 80-20 split.

Now, unlike a lot of critics I could name, I don’t hate musicals (unless they’re We Will Rock You).  I’m perfectly happy to see musicals dominating the Audience award shortlist:  they’re the golden geese of the commercial West End, they get people into theatres and (with the aforementioned exception) the ones on the shortlist are actually good.

But all the same, it cheers me up to see War Horse holding its own up there.  It’s evidence that the taste of the British theatregoing public - your taste, in other words - is more varied than it’s often portrayed in the media.  Mindless handclappy escapism is not the only reason to visit the West End, and the spectacularly emotional War Horse - plus the intelligent, literate and iconic musicals featured on the shortlist - proves that.

Click here to help decide which of the five will take the gong, but be warned - I’m compiling a shortlist of my own, and voting for We Will Rock You is a surefire way to end up on it.

In March of 2009, Nicholas de Jongh of the Evening Standard quit so he could concentrate on writing plays of his own.  And this week, the mighty Benedict Nightingale, chief critic of The Times for two entire decades, announced he was stepping down too.

What many of us assumed would happen next - what we’d been counting on happening next - was that everyone would effectively shuffle up one level.  Dominic Maxwell would take Nightingale’s position as chief critic, one of The Times’s favourite freelancers would probably get Maxwell’s job, and a space would open up on the paper’s freelancers list.  In short, there would be opportunities.

Instead, both de Jongh and Nightingale were replaced in pretty short order by, respectively, writer Henry Hitchings and journalist Libby Purves, both figures from outside the theatre journalism bubble.  Bold and unexpected moves by the Standard and the Thunderer - but while Hitchings is doing an excellent job, and it’s difficult to imagine Purves putting a foot wrong, what does this mean for the rest of us?

It means we all stay on the rungs we’re on, of course, but more importantly it means we’re less likely than ever to move up even by one.  There are fewer paid critics’ positions than there’ve ever been, they’re only vacated once in a blue moon, and the message we’re now getting is that even when one does open up we have zero chance of getting it, no matter how much commitment and drive we show, no matter how much talent we display and develop, no matter how many years we spend working for free to build our portfolios.

Well, fine.  Forget the nationals.  Forget the dream of being paid to do what you love.  Instead, get a day job and embrace the internet.  Make a hobby of it, not a career.  Critics were once commonly viewed as dilettantes and dabblers - and if we aren’t allowed to climb higher, moving backwards towards that romantic image may be our only sensible option.

First and foremost, they remember global catastrophes.  Summing up a whole year in ten minutes of drama is a tall order, of course, so most of the ten focus on one or two iconic events - and it seems most of the iconic events of the Noughties were disasters.  The Millennium Bug (okay - only a potential disaster), 9/11, the war in Iraq, the Christmas tsunami of 2004, Guantanamo Bay and the election of BNP MEPs all feature.

This could be because, as we’re often told, Conflict Is The Essence Of Drama.  Alternatively, this could be how we’re fated to remember the last decade:  as one disaster after another.

It was also a decade dominated by the USA, and American accents permeate Decade.  Behind his vacant stare, President George Dubya Bush is dancing inside, in Beth Steel’s surreal 2001.  Nimer Rashed personifies the post-9/11 USA as a seductive, manipulative but brutally wronged neighbour.  In Richard Marsh’s 2007, two Guantanamo guards find themselves in thrall to an inmate’s superior knowledge of the final Harry Potter book.

Surprisingly, despite suspicion of Muslims and Middle Eastern peoples dictating many powerful countries’ foreign policy, and despite the landmark election of the USA’s first black President, race is hardly touched upon.  Marsh’s inmate Khaliq (Sartaj Garewal) comments briefly on the consequences of assuming certain people are all the same, but it’s left to Rex Obano to tackle race single-handedly in 2009 - a task he accomplishes defiantly, though not without the odd flop in onstage energy.

The quality of the writing is consistently high enough that, without the programme, it’s difficult to distinguish the seasoned pros from the unknowns.  Newcomer Nimer Rashed struggles to find an original angle on 9/11, but still outdoes Market Boy writer David Eldridge’s limp offering (though Eldridge’s scene isn’t helped by weak, overly static direction from Gene David Kirk).  Amy Rosenthal and April de Angelis both deliver strong, pacey, dialogue-driven contributions, but so too does the unproduced Richard Marsh.  Beth Steel delivers more meaning via her surrealism than Phil Porter’s weird, overwrought piece.

The finished product - cemented together with period pop music and news headlines - is a dreamlike reassemblage of half-faded memories.  Not a complete picture of the decade by any means, but a more potent epitaph by far than the kind of bland, Jimmy-Carr-hosted nostalgia thrown together for TV.

Decade closes this Saturday 23 January - buy your ticket while you still can.

Public opinion polls aren’t exactly news, especially in Theatreland; Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group make their most significant casting decisions via televised phone-in these days, after all.  But the Oliviers, like the BAFTAs and the Oscars, have always been a strictly industry affair.

The judging panel for the Theatre category (which also includes musical theatre) consists of five experts and eight members of the theatregoing public; but nominations can usually only be made by members of the Society of London Theatre, so the ordinary mortals on the panel can’t fight for a show that isn’t already endorsed by the industry.

The Audience Award nominees, on the other hand, will be determined by an online poll that’s open to everyone.  Once the nominations are announced, in the week beginning 8 February, a second round of public voting will determine the winner.

To be eligible for nomination, a production must already have been running on 1 January 2009 and still have been going on 31 December 2009.  To run for that long a show has to have immense popular appeal, so it’s only appropriate that the people who kept them open - who made them eligible - should be the ones to honour them in British theatre’s most prestigious ceremony.

The eligible productions, in alphabetical order, are:  The 39 Steps, Avenue Q, Billy Elliot - The Musical, Blood Brothers, La Cage Aux Folles, Chicago, Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage, Grease, Hairspray, Jersey Boys, The Lion King, Mamma Mia, Les Misérables, The Mousetrap, The Phantom of the Opera, Stomp, War Horse, We Will Rock You, Wicked and The Woman In Black.

Click here to vote for your favourite - and stay tuned to t5m through February for comments on the nominees and a reminder to vote in the second round.

If you’re one of those millions, you can easily afford a night out at the theatre.  Not nearly enough people realise this.  The expense is probably the most common excuse for not attending the theatre, but if you can afford a cinema ticket - especially in London, where a peak ticket can cost up to £11 even without IMAX or 3D or other trimmings - you can afford a theatre ticket.

No one’s disputing that the West End is expensive, but there’s more to theatre than Theatreland.  And cheaper tickets don’t necessarily equate to a poorer quality product:  thanks to a sponsorship deal with Travelex, you can see certain productions at the South Bank’s National Theatre, arguably the UK’s most influential venue, for just £10.  Production values at the National rival the commercial West End, and there are no bad seats in the theatre’s vast Olivier space; the £10 view is as good as the £40 view.

A short walk from the National, in an atmospheric vault under London Bridge, you’ll find Southwark Playhouse, whose ‘airline-style’ pricing means you can get tickets for as little as £8 if you book early enough.  A little further afield, but still in Zone One, is the Royal Court, which specialises in brand new work by up-and-coming writers; on Mondays, every seat in the house costs just £10.  A lot of the Royal Court’s productions end up transferring to the West End, where top price tickets can cost five times that sum - so see them while they’re cheap!

If you want somewhere to spend the money you’ve saved on your ticket, try the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill.  It’s a tiny but very flexible space located above the Prince Albert Pub.  They specialise in new translations of foreign plays, and tickets for the first three performances of every production are just £8.

If 100-seater spaces under bridges or over pubs aren’t your idea of theatre, you could do worse than the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith; their main performance space is an impressively ornate Victorian proscenium arch, complete with stalls, circle and boxes, and they offer £10 tickets for certain performances of every production.  Or for a less baroque experience try the Almeida Theatre in Islington - cheapest tickets £8.

As if all those affordable venues weren’t enough, if you’re under 26 you can get into some of the best performances around without paying a penny, thanks to the Arts Council’s A Night Less Ordinary scheme.  Just go to www.anightlessordinary.org.uk, type in your postcode and you’ll find a list of theatres, including most of the ones I’ve listed above, that you’re entitled to patronise free of charge.

Understand, too, that this is just a sampler of the venues and deals on offer.  Even the West End can be affordable (ish) if you don’t mind visiting the TKTS booth in Leicester Square in person, and I’ve barely begun to cover London’s thriving and criminally overlooked pub theatre scene.  So no more excuses:  if you can afford a cinema ticket, or three pints in a London pub, you can afford a night out at the theatre.

Directed by Gabriella Santinelli

Starring James Kenward, Amy Rhodes, Annabel Topham

Hen & Chickens Theatre, until Saturday 19th December, £12.00 (book tickets)

In The Lamplight’s Lady Julia brings August Strindberg’s seminal Miss Julie<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–> bang up to date, throwing together high-born Julia (Annabel Topham) and her father’s valet John (James Kenward) on New Year’s Eve 2008. It’s possible the company are hoping to replicate the success of Patrick Marber’s After Miss Julie<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>, which updated the unlikely lovers and their tragic liaison from the 1874 of Strindberg’s play to 1945, but Lady Julia takes poorly to its new 21st century context.

The daughter of a Duke (or an Earl; James and Ben Kenward’s modern vernacular translation contradicts itself on this point) having a one night stand with the hired help just isn’t the life or death matter it would have been in 1874, or even 1945. John and Julia seem more concerned with the jeers of the other household staff (who hilariously sing Ali G and Shaggy’s ‘Me Julie’ from offstage) than the media or the Duke’s reaction. Modern culture is tolerant enough of sexual indiscretion that the stakes for Julia and John never seem high enough to justify her second act histrionics. They’re certainly too low to justify suicide.

Finicky contextual details like this would be easier to overlook if the whole production were as engaging as the first act. From her first entrance, Topham asserts herself as a flighty but nonetheless confident and commanding celeb-aristo, forever drumming her fingers to dissipate nervous energy, in contrast to Kenward’s stoic John. But once the deed is done and contemporary attitudes to sex and reputation actually become relevant to their predicament, the incongruities become harder to ignore.

The downward slide begins with an incongruous physical theatre sequence, the only dramatic purpose of which seems to be to suggest the passage of time (which could be achieved with a blackout) and how John and Julia are spending it (which becomes apparent soon enough anyway). A scattershot and repetitive second act follows, in which director Gabriella Santinelli makes use of Topham’s impressive emotional range by having her change mood instantaneously every three or four lines. Each moment is believable in itself, but when strung together the impression they give is that Julia is bipolar, rather than simply tired, drunk and naturally skittish.

Amy Rhodes provides welcome relief as Christine the cook, delivering a comparatively understated and consistent performance, and refreshingly calling John out on all the bullshit Julia willingly swallows. For Strindberg, the character represented everything he despised: a peasant without aspirations to higher things. In this production, her unambitious pragmatism actually seems an attractive alternative to the others’ flights of fancy.

Directed by Phillip Breen

Bush Theatre, until Saturday 9th January 2009, £15.00/£13.00 (book tickets)

Two one-act plays back to back don’t usually make a successful two-act play. Right? Which suggests it’s probably no coincidence that Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved and Stefan Golaszewski Is A Widower work so well as a double bill; it seems likely they were always meant to be performed together.

It was clear from the plays’ debuts, a year apart at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, that they were stylistically and thematically of a piece. Each is a monologue in which Golaszewski relates romantic episodes from ‘his’ life, or a fictionalised version of it (in Widower he imagines himself in the year 2056, following marriage and a moderately successful TV career), aided by some simple props and a gift for writing fresh, cliché-free imagery.

What wasn’t immediately obvious back then was how neatly the two would bolt together for their London transfer. At around an hour each they were bite-sized enough for the choice-rich, time-poor Festival theatregoer, but the double bill is easily substantial enough to be worth a London audience’s while. More importantly, the emotional and thematic trajectories of Golaszewski as a character and a playwright are revealed and reinforced by the juxtaposition; images, foibles and techniques introduced in About A Girl pay off with interest when revisited in Widower.

Little gimmicks used in About A Girl simply to create sight gags give rise instead to pathos when they recur in the altered context of Widower. Golaszewski’s tendency to idolise women is the quirky fulcrum of About A Girl, but Widower acknowledges the disadvantages of such an attitude when applied to a more adult kind of relationship; the wide-eyed, innocent awe of female beauty that characterises About A Girl is only briefly retrodden in Widower before tragedy abruptly erases it in favour of a whole new range of grown-up emotions like bitterness, desperation and regret.

Individually the plays are snapshots of a man at two different stages of emotional maturity. Combined, they sketch a more complete portrait of a man learning the hard way that the reality of long-term commitment can never be as idealistically romantic as rose-tinted recollections of unrealised adolescent love. Underscoring it all are the insecurities of a young playwright coming uneasily to terms with his own premonitions of future emotional disillusionment and bodily deterioration. The whole is unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts – and given all the stars, awards and praise each play received individually, marrying them is sure to result in a critical mass of acclaim.

Photograph © Pete Le May

Which is why it’s excellent news that the Bush are back doing what they do best, only this time with an additional social networking element. Bushgreen.org is a site “for people in theatre to connect, collaborate and publish plays in innovative ways”. Playwrights can submit their manuscripts directly to the Bush’s team, or publish them publicly on the site for other writers to critique, or for publishers and producers to peruse. There’s even the option to charge for downloads of your script.

When I signed up on the site myself, I discovered that, whether deliberately or unwittingly, the Bush have taken a stance on the issue of whether critics are part of the artistic establishment, or whether, as the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer would have it, they stand apart (”the belief that critics are part of the theatre community” is, says Spencer, a “great misapprehension”).

You can register on the site as a Playwright, Actor, Agent, Director, Dramaturge, Choreographer, Composer, Costume Designer, Lighting Designer, Literary Manager, Producer, Production, Production Manager, Publisher, Set Designer, Sound Designer, Stage Manager, Student, Enthusiast, Theatre Company, Group or Other. Critics – in fact journos of any kind – apparently aren’t “people in theatre”, or worse, we’re the feared and exiled Other.

I doubt very much that the Bush are actually trying to make any kind of statement with this; it’s much more likely I’m drawing random conclusions having happened to stumble on the site not long after wading through the critical blogosphere, catching up on the debate. But it’s worth stating that I think critics absolutely are part of the theatre community, and that reviews – and increasingly, comments on reviews – are as much a part of the creative process as writing, rehearsal and performance. A show doesn’t end when the house lights come up. Its influence continues to resonate as long as it’s inspiring debate.