Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner hails the ‘extraordinary’ career of the celebrated critic who started at the newspaper in 1971
After almost 50 years and some 10,000 reviews, Michael Billington is to step down as the Guardian’s chief theatre critic. Billington, who was hired in 1971, has been virtually a daily presence in the paper through decades of different broadsheet designs up to today’s tabloid and digital formats. His incisive reviews, with their rich historical sweep, keen eye for detail and socio-political context, plus the odd judiciously deployed pun, have made him one of the world’s most respected arts critics.
“It has been,” says Billington, “a huge privilege and pleasure to write about theatre for the Guardian for the past 48 years. I have, however, decided to step down from the job of daily reviewing. I shall shortly be 80 and, with the years, the stress of writing to a deadline doesn’t get any easier. Giving up will be a wrench but I feel now is the right time to do it.” Billington believes he has been “tremendously lucky” to cover
British theatre at a time of “extraordinary richness when playwriting especially has been more fruitful than at any period since the Elizabethan era”.