Legendary UK Theatre Critic Michael Billington on the Evolution of Acting & the Prospect of Retirement

Michael Billington has remained a staple of the UK theatre industry since he was first hired by The Guardian in 1965 - and, nearly fifty years later, he takes a look back at the evolution of acting and writing he's witnessed, as well as the prospect of retirement, in a new interview with The Stage.

"My kind of tenure is almost impossible now, I think,"e he said, commenting on his lengthy career at The Guardian. "I was part of a generation - Benedict [Nightingale], Jack Tinker and others - who had quite long careers with one newspaper. Nowadays, people are more restless and the industry is much more unreliable, as we both know. I'm part of a lucky generation that had a kind of stability, where newspapers, when I started out, seemed likely to continue and if you enjoyed the job and did it to your employer's satisfaction, you stayed."

And stayed he has, though retirement, at 75, is something always on his mind.

"I don't intend to hang on forever and ever. One of my colleagues said, 'If you stay on until 2021, you'll have done 50 years at The Guardian'. I said, 'I'll be 81'." The future depends on three things, he says: health, memory and enthusiasm. It's hard to believe any of them will fade...Whenever the thought of retirement crosses my mind, I look at the diary and think: 'Oh gosh, Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh's doing Archie Rice. I really want to write about that.' This is the trouble with theatre: there's always something exciting round the corner."

Throughout his years of critiquing the finest - and less so - pieces of theatre to grace London's stages, Billington insists the craft has undoubtedly changed, with modern plays now being "more democratic," and how acting has evolved throughout his tenure with the publication.

"Acting's less about impersonation these days and more about explication," he said. "I don't think acting has declined, but Olivier and that generation were part of a heroic age of acting; they created exceptional people on stage."

And though he's quite comfortable with where he's scrawled out a place for himself within the industry, appearing on stage was always something he was drawn to.

"What was that line at the end of Gypsy the other night? 'If I could have been, I would have been.'" he told the publication. "I was always drawn to it, but in the end, I was comfortable when I sat down at a desk in a room alone with an old-fashioned typewriter and wrote about other people. When I went into a rehearsal room, I always felt nervous...I don't sit here and think, 'I could have been Trevor Nunn'. You make whatever contribution your talent allows you to make."

Click here to read The Stage's full interview with Billington.

Image: Michael Billington's Official Staff Photo for The Guardian

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