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You have obviously spent so much time with your head wedged between your buttocks that your vision has been obscured by the reflection of your own putrid entrails. --- Anonymous letter to John Simon (NY drama critic).
The conscientious Canadian critic is one who subscribes to the New York Times so that he knows first hand what his opinion should be. -- Eric Nicol, 1968.
On the production "The Cupboard": Bare. --- Clive Barnes
lt seems to be that giving Clive Barnes his CBE for services to the theatre is a bit like giving Goering the DFC for services to the RAF. --- Alan Bennett on the drama critic for the New York Times.
Everybody who was anybody was there --- that is they were there till the end of the second act. --- Noel Coward on the first night in New York of the play "This was a man"
Her own one-woman play about fatness... coming soon, no doubt, will be "Prepare To Meet Thy Dome", a searing drama about receding hairlines. --- Nick Curtis on Susan Gott's "Watching and Waiting".
Where Shakespeare had written the word `O' she favoured us with an extended imitation of a hurrying ambulance.
Kempinski's problems deserve understanding and pity -- but not a paying audience. --- Nick Curtis
It is said that the quickest way to empty a theatre is to yell "Fire!" Another method slightly slowed, is to put on the current National Theatre production of "The force of habit".
It is the kind of play that one might enjoy more at a second hearing, if only the first time through hadn't left such a strong feeling that once is enough. -- W.A.Darlington
If I was Sir Peter Hall and had instigated such a production, I would take myself out to dinner and very tactfully but firmly sack myself over dessert. -- James Fenton
During the overture you hoped it would be good. During the first number you hoped it would be good. After that you just hoped it would be over. -- Walter Kerr
The Red I believe stood for communism. The Rainbow stood for the light in the heavens after communism took over. The audience stood for more than could be imagined. --- Walter Kerr on "The Red Rainbow"
It had two strikes against it. One was that you couldn't hear half of it. The other was the half you could hear. --- Walter Kerr
It has the depth of a cracker motto, the drama of a dial-a-recipe service and the eloquence of a conversation between a speak-your-weight maching and a whoopee cushion. --- Bernard Levin
Prompter steals the show in UCLA Macbeth. --- L.A.Times
[It has] dialogues that writers of cat food commercials might well spurn. -- Sheridan Morley on "No Sex Please -- We're British"
The hills are alive with the sound of cliches... --- Sheridan Morley
A production of such mind-bending awfulness that only the laws of libel prevent me from dwelling on it at even greater length. --- Sheridan Morley
Could it be time to change the brand of cheese? -- Barrie Stacey on the long running production The Mousetrap.
I saw it at a disadvantage - the curtain was up. --- Arthur Wimperis
Most ballet would be quite delightful were it not for the dancing.
[Sir Laurence] Olivier brandished his technique like a kind of stylistic alibi. In catching the eye he frequently disengaged the brain. -- Russell Davies
His perfomance is such that he is taking some kind of personal revenge on the play. -- Robert Cushman
They make a remarkable ventrlioquist act. Together they amount to a prat with a perm holding a green duck with a squeaky voice dressed in a nappy. The only intriguing thing about their act is trying to work out which one is which --- Stafford Hildred on Keith Harris and Orville.
No-one walked out of the perfomance, but several ran out.
