Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington OBE (born 16 November 1939) is a British author and arts critic.[1] He writes for The Guardian, and was the paper's chief drama 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 playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008).[3][4][5]
Michael Billington
Michael Keith Billington
16 November 1939
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England
- Author
- arts critic
1961–present
- Criticism
- biography
- Harold Pinter (biography)
- State of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945
- The 101 Greatest Plays: From Antiquity to the Present
1
Early life and education[edit]
Billington was born on 16 November 1939, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, and attended Warwick School, an independent boys' school in Warwick.[6][7][8] He attended St Catherine's College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, where he studied English and was appointed theatre critic of Cherwell.[9] He graduated with a BA degree.[8][10]
As a member of Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), in 1959, Billington played the Priest in The Birds, by Aristophanes, his only appearance as an actor,[11][12] and, in 1960, he directed a production of Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Prima Donna, a performance of which was attended by Harold Hobson, the drama critic for The Sunday Times.[10] Although it won "an Oxford drama competition" and was an entry in that year's National 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 at The Times.[10]
Personal life[edit]
Billington lives in Chiswick, London, with his wife, Jeanine Bradlaugh; the couple have one daughter. Billington is a supporter of the Labour Party.[4][28]
In popular culture[edit]
In fiction, Billington's name was introduced in Death of a Hollow Man by Caroline Graham, later adapted for the Midsomer 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]
Honours[edit]
Billington was made an honorary fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, in 2005[8] and was awarded an honorary doctorate by The University of Warwick in July 2009.[30]
He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to the theatre.[31]