Three Kingdoms : a play which Andrew describes as “giving your synapses an electric shock”.Ene Liis Semper

The theatre review is a familiar form to even the most casual of newspaper readers: headed by a few stars, it tells you what a play is about and whether or not you should see it.

The reviews posted on Andrew Haydon’s blog Postcards from the Gods, however, are a different animal altogether. They dwarf the standard review in length, and seek not to tell the reader whether or not to book a ticket, but to discuss and critique theatre as an art form. They provide a complex, in-depth analysis of the plays they concern – a luxury often denied the standard theatre reviewer.

Haydon, a freelance theatre critic who has written for Time Out, The Financial Times and The Guardian, claims he more or less stumbled into theatre reviewing while attending the 1997 edition of the National Student Drama Festival: “Noises Off, a daily review magazine covering the performances, had a tent at the festival. It was open all night, they served coffee and you could smoke indoors”.

Comparing his professional writing to the work he does on his blog, Haydon says: “At its worst, you feel every pound that you are being paid is for a compromise you have to make. It’s someone else’s agenda, which influences what you’re commissioned to write.”

Professional reviews are also limited by their length. “Time Out used to commission pieces that were 250 words long, but now word counts are getting slashed to maybe half that….The review just becomes a justification of the star rating,” said Andrew, who nonetheless acknowledges that short reviews are useful because they appeal to a wider readership rather than rather than a small group of theatre enthusiasts.

When Haydon began writing for The Guardian in 2007, the newspaper was focusing on increasing its online content, and a relatively large budget was set aside for more in-depth pieces on theatre. While Haydon conceded that The Guardian’s theatre blog from that period might interest a theatre devotee, the public felt it was “too niche for them to bother with”.

“The fact that people feel like that about theatre is partly to do with audience numbers. It takes a big West End show to rack up the same audience numbers as something no one remembers watching on Channel 5.”

Haydon’s reviews in Postcards from the Gods are lengthier and more analytical than his newspaper ones, and as a result attract a different audience.

He admits, “My blog is not particularly public-facing. I know I write for people who already care about theatre, people who are...inside the business or who have a particular interest in it.”

Haydon believes that the succinct nature of the average theatre review speaks to a wider culture: “We want information fast, and that’s true of other things, not just theatre.” In spite of this, he feels longer reviews have an important place in criticism. “I don’t know who took the decision that no one has an attention span anymore. I’m not sure it’s true. But you’d be a monster to say all reviews have to be over a thousand words. That would kill theatre as much as having no reviews.”

Haydon does not see TV as the enemy of theatre, although he argues it has certainly changed the theatre scene: “Most of our best TV writers started out in theatre. That’s how you get on the ladder.”

“Because TV does realism so well, theatre’s real responsibility is to emphasise the things TV can’t do – interactivity, immersion, and giving the audience agency.”
Haydon also emphasises the way live theatre can make us sit through pieces that are more challenging. Describing his experience at this year’s Ruhrtriennale festival in Germany, Haydon said: “I sat down and I was made to look at stuff I wouldn’t watch on my own because it’s slow and it’s difficult”.

Haydon’s passion for live theatre is evident as he describes the “excitingly humanising experience” of “being aware of other people watching, doing the same thing in the same space.”

While he stresses the importance of theatre criticism, Haydon is happy to admit that one of the main attractions of theatre is that “no record of it can ever be complete.”

Haydon’s blog can be found at postcardsgods.blogspot.co.uk