Arts Reviews: And How to Write Them

by Celia Brayfield

Whether your passion is film, music, books, visual arts, or the stage, you can get closer to it as a reviewer and establish a career in one of the most influential roles open to a writer. A great review can be read by millions, and writing it calls for a high degree of skill. Based on a lifelong passion, packed into a few hundred words, and often written in less than an hour, a review makes heavy demands on a writer's technique and experience. This book explains how to seize readers' attention and how to be witty always, fascinating most of the time, and bitchy when you need to be. Reviews from classic writers like Pauline Kael or Kenneth Tynan are contrasted with today's hot names such as Mark Kermode and Stewart Maconie. The history of the critic is examined, including some of the groundbreaking groups who have shaped our culture—including Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, the French New Wave directors who founded Les Cahiers du Cinema, and London's celebrated Modern Review . Interviews with successful journalists and commissioning editors from the NME and The Guardian about breaking into the field are also included.

Genres: Writing

160 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Celia Brayfield has written four non-fiction books and nine novels of which Mister Fabulous and Friends is currently in development for television. Her novel Heartswap was optioned by Paramount and Harvest for Chrysalis Films. Celia is currently working on a series of historical novels. She also teaches Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and Brunel University.

After attending St Paul's Girls' School in London, Celia went to Grenoble University in France to study French Language and Literature, before moving into journalism at The Times. She has one daughter and lives in Oxfordshire.

Reviews

[Scott Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it fair to write a review about a book on writing reviews? Perhaps not, but I will attempt the feat nonetheless. In this work, British author Celia Brayfield offers her readers wisdom and experiences from her career of writing arts reviews for periodicals. (She has since moved on to writing full books.)

She spends first eight of the ten chapters sharing the rules of the road for writing arts reviews. She fills in these rules with examples from her life experience. While this was interesting at first, I grew tired of hearing story after story. I wanted Brayfield to put forth an argument or, at the very least, to cite someone else who is putting forth an argument. Without a strong central narrative, the book seemed to ramble at times. Being more familiar with the American arts scene than the British one, I had trouble sifting through the unfamiliar names.

Although I thought about putting the book down as I labored through the chapters, the last two chapters redeemed it to me. In the next-to-last chapter, Brayfield provides a detailed history of arts reviews. She displays erudition about the major writers who shaped our perception of this practice. In the last chapter, she provides helpful and practical advice for starting out in the field. Such pragmatism is always welcomed.

I wish she would have taken the perspective of writing to help the reader understand how to perfect the art instead of just sharing story upon story. This book is not a total failure as the last two chapters illustrate. Still, it could have been stronger to meet my desires and my American cultural experience.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Celia Brayfield's ARTS REVIEWS ...and how to write them is not a primer about critiquing art shows and museum retrospectives.

It is clear, funny, and useful advice for beginning arts journalists.

If you want to qrite about movies and music, Brayfield demonstrates handling deadlines, challenging editors, and how to conduct yourself at festivals and pubs.

There is also useful advice about style, overcoming opinion fatigue, and the importance of professional attitudes to work.

Brayfield's book is an excellent compass.

[Diana180]

#curriculum I think this one will be all right to recommend to my students. It has some non-obvious advice as well as the usual big helping of obvious advice (do your homework, write interestingly), and it deals with problems of fairness and reporting on arts you are not expert in. She is realistic on the press law and media landscape that has made so many reviews dishonest. There are some mistakes. Frank Rich, not Clive Barnes, was the "Butcher of Broadway." Tom Cruise, not Tom Hanks, famously rejected 14 interviewers for a Rolling Stone profile before finding one he would sit for.

[Myka · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read to get one started reviewing the arts without making too many beginner's mistakes. This book does helps you build your knowledge and enthusiasm into actual critical reviews. It also briefly describes the positive role a good critic plays within the artistic community.

[Sanath Kumar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Suitable for someone looking a career as reviewer.