Arifa Akbar, chief theatre critic
The biggest surprise of the lockdown is realising I can still do my job as a theatre critic, even when every theatre has gone dark. The industry responded quickly, first by putting archive shows online (many of them available free of charge) and then by creating specially commissioned works, online festivals, and other ingenious ways to keep audiences connected to venues.
Seven weeks on, there is a blizzard of theatre being streamed online. The new work is mainly in the form of monologues, filmed by the actor in some cases. These were initially quick-response dramas, rough around the edges, but have grown far slicker. Some companies are using technology in inventive ways too, such as interactive theatre on Zoom.
I have spoken to writers, actors and artistic directors who are thinking hard about ways to adapt but there is grave concern about funding and future survival, and sometimes I have felt a lump in my throat after an interview. But a lot of them have pointed out that this is an imaginative art form so will find ways to survive. I think it is true, though live theatre might look and feel different when it is back.
Reviewing theatre from my sofa rather than the stalls is not the same thing. Being in the room gives you an intensity of focus and it demands continuous attention. At home I can press pause or rewind, and that changes everything.
I don’t feel the nervous thrill of an overnight deadline either because I am now often watching a show in the daytime, and have far longer to write. I hadn’t quite realised that turning around a review inside 12 hours is something I find hugely exciting.
Peter Bradshaw, film critic
If Covid-19 had hit 20 years ago, the film industry and the life of the film critic would have been knocked sideways. Closing cinemas and video stores would have meant no new films coming out, and releasing them straight to DVD would involve mail order, an unreliable and unappetising option. Reviews on that basis would have been all but impossible.
But streaming technology – which took off around 2006 – has changed that. Now the industry has found that people in lockdown have a huge appetite for new films on streaming services, and critics can watch the films themselves a week or so in advance on their laptops. So although some big-ticket items like James Bond have been delayed and international film festivals this year pretty much cancelled, film critics carry doggedly on, watching films on their laptops. Actually, they were doing that with one or two films a week anyway. I’m only being semi-facetious when I say that a Thursday night clapping session should be devoted to the people who keep Britain’s wifi going.
What the lockdown has meant is that the film critic’s life has become lonelier, more isolated— although also, arguably, more thoughtful. We used to see movies on the big screen, often with loads of other people. Film watching was a part of professional life and also part of a bustlingly social real life.
In many ways, it’s a triumph that cinema has carried on. But the real danger is that commercial success for streamed movies will mean that studios will be less interested in cinema releases after the lockdown, and that home-streaming will become, if not the new normal, then increasingly the new more-possible. But film critics will be very glad to get out of their lockdown — and back inside the darkness of a cinema.
Alexis Petridis, head rock and pop critic
On one level, lockdown hasn’t changed my working life too dramatically: I’ve spent 20 years working from home. But on the other, there are no gigs to review, and fewer albums: opinion seems divided as to whether it’s better to press on with releases as planned or put release dates back in the hope things will have returned to something like normality by the time the album comes out. There are no face-to-face interviews, and I hate using Zoom or FaceTime. Conversation always seems incredibly stilted on them, as if people haven’t quite learned yet how to behave naturally. Or maybe they’re just horrified by my appearance after eight weeks without a visit to the barbers, which is fair enough.And depressingly, the shortfall in interviews and reviews has been more than made up for by a surge in obituaries and posthumous appreciations.
I have no idea what the future holds for the music industry, and frankly nor does anyone else: everything you hear or read on the subject is just conjecture, no matter how authoritative its tone seems. I don’t see an industry predicated on mass gatherings getting to back to normal in a hurry. There’s a theory that festivals and major tours aren’t going to restart in earnest until 2022. What happens in the interim is anyone’s guess: I’ve heard predictions of everything from financial apocalypse to an explosion of creativity unbridled by the usual rules which no longer apply. But no one knows. That’s one of the hardest things about life at the moment: the not knowing.
Lucy Mangan, TV critic
I started self-isolating about two weeks before lockdown. It wasn’t a vast change to my normal lifestyle and it made me feel better not to have to think of myself as a potential mass murderer every time I went out. But when lockdown was announced, even though my physical state didn’t change, my emotional state took a similar knock to everyone else’s. And having the pestilence “officially” confirmed – well, no matter how happily introverted in ordinary times, no matter how much dystopian fiction you have read (or viewed), it turns out that it’s still a bit of a facer when it comes.
I can work under almost any circumstances because it has always been my salvation and because I’m lucky enough to love what I do. I’ve filed columns hours after being sacked, after finding out a friend had died, and throughout a fairly hefty bout of post-natal depression. And I found I could still, just about. TV reviews were still doable, but as time has gone on they have had to be written during ever-smaller gaps, between homeschooling, meal-assembly three times a day, crying with rage after government briefings, fatigue after anxiety-dream-ridden nights, and fear for my parents. My dad, and so effectively my mother too, have been shielding from the beginning and a few weeks ago he was diagnosed with early stomach cancer as well, which is extremely thoughtless of him. I hope my writing’s quality (whatever it was to begin with) hasn’t dropped – if it has then I can only apologise and promise that I’m doing my best. It’s all, unless we’re purporting to lead the country, any of us can do.
Jonathan Jones, art critic
The truest piece of criticism I’ve read since lockdown was by Jay Rayner. He wrote about the joy of eating sausages from the fridge as an example of the comforts we should allow ourselves in these challenging times.
I wish I could write about art like that – as something simple and reassuring in which we can all find solace. Art isn’t always like that. It can be sophisticated, controversial, difficult - the opposite of a hearty banger.
But it can also touch the deepest wellsprings of fear and hope. I’m trying as a critic to draw attention to such art, in these times that remind us how mortal we are. In a forthcoming project for Guardian Documentaries we explore the tragic art of Rembrandt and Rothko, the ecstatic sunrises of Monet and Turner, finding resources of inspiration as well as portrayals of pain.
I think the best thing a critic can do now is point to art that strengthens. It’s impressive how many artists are producing such images. Tracey Emin made a video diary with her usual direct honesty. Gilbert and George shared a very different insight into their besuited lockdown. And David Hockney is doing his best work in years, depicting spring in his French garden in colours of joy. Art can be as good as a sausage after all.
Oliver Wainwright, design and architecture critic
Back-to-back building tours, hasty previews of unfinished exhibitions, the frantic dash around the opening days of the Venice Biennale – with all of that wiped off the calendar, the pandemic has provided a useful time to pause and slow down.
Visiting new buildings may be off limits for the foreseeable future, but that means we can train our sights on the unbuilt – such as the alarming proposals for Gateshead Quays, which otherwise might have slipped under the radar. The last few weeks have also allowed space to zoom out and look more deeply at some broader topics, whether that’s the murky mechanics of the housebuilding industry, or the startling career of the unsung Irish designer Eileen Gray.
The pandemic has spawned its own plethora of material too, from designers coming up with Covid-fighting solutions , to the host of temporary structures popping up across the world , to wider questions about how our cities might adapt if the virus is here to stay. Ultimately, the lockdown has had a clarifying effect, exposing our stark urban inequalities and making clear the urgent need to improve housing space standards and prioritise streets for walking and cycling. As critics, we must fight to ensure that these lessons are heeded, and we don’t just go back to business as usual when it’s all over.