Writers should be free to express their opinions – not strangled by Stasi-like ‘diversity’ rules
Arts critics are being warned by the union Equity to watch what they say. Whatever the intentions, it’s a sinister, anti-free speech move
29 April 2021 • 5:00am
Critically isolated: writers and journalists, says Ben Lawrence, shouldn t be ordered to conform to industry pressure
Credit: Getty
Last week, the acting union Equity delivered a new set of guidelines for theatre critics. Among its recommendations was that critics should consider their ethnicity and relative privilege when writing their reviews. The union urged that they “avoid referring to immutable characteristics such as age, race, gender and appearance, unless such characteristics directly affect the production’s meaning”. For a decade, I have been a critic across several art forms, including theatre, and while I hope that, out of fairness, I have always adhered to the above, I am appalled that Equity ar