Self Indulgent Meditation Part 47

I might have a habit of spamming Facebook everytime I write a new entry, but more personal entries like this tend to  be set to one side. I don't think they are interesting enough to boast about - the point of the blog is to alert potential audiences to stuff I think is cool, and my egotistical musings are more of a side-bar. Unfortunately, I do feel the need to add the odd meditation on my beliefs and intentions.

Hopefully, these interludes make sense of my idiosyncratic attitude to criticism. For the record, I call it Radical Subjectivity, which refuses the hope of an objective opinion and highlights the writer's own experience to give context to the review. I throw out the odd straight review, even here, because I want to prove I can still write them. And yes, I am looking for work.

I have a fundamental belief that everytime anyone goes to the theatre, the world becomes a marginally better place. That is because I believe that being part of an audience, and having a shared experience, and being presented with a version of reality, is an intrinsic good. This also applies to art galleries, film showings, music gigs, anything where the artist dictates the location and  time. Community performance is probably even better, but I am still grappling with that.

Combined with this blog's need to be fed (I can't keep the big readership without constant up-dating. That is the way of the web), I am willing to write about as much performance as press agents can provide. Within that, there are plays I can get very enthusiastic about, and others I am less inclined to push.

This is a matter of personal taste. I don't want to become a shrill side-show barker, supporting all of Scotland's theatre indiscriminately. Equally, I don't want to just bang on about experimental physical theatre and ignore anything more mainstream. Just because I am pretentious doesn't mean that there is a true hierarchy of art.

I am  hoping that posts like this one put my choices in context, and make it clearer why I favour certain artistic endeavours. I am trying to find a way to allow the reader to react to my opinion, and be aware of how I make them.

One trick I am trying is to insult myself. If a flame war begins, I have said far worse about myself.