What Real Criticism Reads Like

If you don't know the wonderful British writer, A.A. Gill, you should. Scorn doesn't quite manage to sum up the prose he pours over the egos of those unfortunate enough to be reviewed by him. Here's a paragraph a reader sent along from last weekend. Full disclosure - Gill writes for my paper, the Sunday Times. Money quote:

The play was the thing – a desperate, unbelievable, dramatically inert bit of third-degree embarrassment; secondhand agitprop clich that would have shamed a drama-GCSE improv class. Not a single word or emotion or reaction was honest or believable or real. Again, I’m speechless with admiration for the Tristram who has been paid money, fed lunch and given a chair that goes up and down and has such insouciant confidence in the idiocy of his audience that he allowed this to be broadcast. And not just cast, but cast with good actors who had agents who suffered the same effortless belief and said: "Do it. Who cares? It’s cash." Finally, and most awe-inspiringly, that someone sat down at a keyboard, tapped away and made The Dinner Party – a crippling, dribbling, mewling homunculus of plagiarism. And, having done it, they didn't turn white and book themselves into an ashram. They said: "This is cool. I'll show it to the grown-ups", and pressed Send. The next time this writer sees his or her name in print, I abjectly pray it’s under "Employee of the month" at Burger King.