"I have never benefited from a critic’s advice" - Words To Live By

Don’t listen to those people. It’s rubbish. Write it off. Critics have given me too much bad advice in the past. I remember Kenneth Tynan demolishing The Blood Knot in London. Today Tynan is in his grave and The Blood Knot isn’t. I was once told that my play is too specifically written for a South African audience, and that I should write in a more universal sense ... for an English-speaking audience ... can you believe advice like that? Thank God I’ve read my Tolstoy and my William Faulkner to know that by virtue of their regionalism they became universal. I have never benefited from a critic’s advice ... they see themselves as performers at the expense of your work. If you want advice, go stand at the back of the theatre during a performance of your play and watch the audience. They’ll tell you what works and what doesn’t. If I was ever to be a critic ... just for a few months, then I would open every review with this line: “This is one man’s opinion, it is not the truth!”  Athol Fugard