Inspiration: Criticism or love letters?

Back in the early 60s, theatrical criticism in Britain threw up its hands and resorted to love letters instead. The cause was Vanessa Redgrave starring in As You Like It, directed by Michael Elliot. She was 24 years old and luminous, with a voice that still pushes all those emotional buttons in the weekly Voice-Over to Call The Midwife.

Bernard Levin, a notoriously astringent theatre critic, wrote “If the word enchantment has any meaning, it is here,” and fell in love with her. Fifty-four years later, Michael Billington was still rhapsodizing about the performance in The Guardian.

The Award-Winning, Five-Star, Chart-Topper Delusion

In spite of his rhapsodies, however, Billington, a professional to his fingertips, couldn’t quite resist calling it “her gold standard Rosalind”. As if there were some sort of industry blueprint.

Amazon, with a star-rating system based on hotel comparator techniques, seems to be doing something similar. So do the bestseller charts. But, as (best seller) Patricia McLinn recently pointed out, sadly they can be manipulated, so they are not statistically reliable.

Sharing a Magical Journey

When someone recommends a book to me, what I remember is how they felt about it, not their measured assessment of the style, theme and content. I certainly don’t care if, after they’ve finished, they’d give the book ten out of ten or a patronising seven and a half for effort.

I want to know what it was like to go through the door into the world of that book.

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