Michael Billington (critic)
| Michael Billington | |
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Michael Billington, 22 April 2010
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| Born | Michael Keith Billington 16 November 1939 Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England |
| Occupation | Critic |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | University of Oxford |
| Genre | criticism, biography |
| Notable works |
Harold Pinter (The Life and Work of Harold Pinter) State of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945 |
| Notable awards | Theatre Book Prize |
| Spouse | Jeanine Bradlaugh (1978– ) |
| Children | One Daughter |
| Website | |
| blogs |
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Michael Keith Billington OBE (born 16 November 1939) is a British author and arts critic.Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised biographer of the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008).
Billington was born on 16 November 1939, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, and attended Warwick School, an independent boys' school in Warwick. He attended St Catherine's College, Oxford from 1958 to 1961, graduating with a BA degree.
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, 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. 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." After the Festival, he decided to forego 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.
After leaving Oxford, in 1961, Billington began working as an arts critic in Liverpool, for the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo. From 1962 to 1964, he served as public liaison officer and director for the Lincoln Theatre Company, in Lincolnshire. From 1965 to 1971, he reviewed television, movies, and plays as an arts critic for The Times; from 1968 to 1978, he was also film reviewer for the Birmingham Post, and from 1968 to 1981, for The Illustrated London News. In October 1971, he left The Times to become theatre critic for The Guardian. Beginning in the 1980s, he was a London arts correspondent for The New York Times, and, since 1988, he has also served as drama critic for Country Life.
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