Philip Hensher: Help save the review (and the reviewer)

Newspapers are going through a period of change, no one can doubt that. Under the pressure of the internet and its myriad contributors, the purpose of pages of criticism seems less obvious as it once was to some owners and editors. In an age where everyone is willing, it seems, to express their views for nothing, and to make them universally accessible for nothing, what is the point of paying a critic to express what is only one person's opinion?

One hears, almost everywhere, gloomy prognostications of the future of newspaper criticism in its traditional form. Some newspapers have done away entirely with a standing critic of some art forms or media, and have found that the world doesn't collapse if you get rid of a television critic, say.

Last week, the much-loved and greatly admired literary editor of The Daily Telegraph, Sam Leith, was unexpectedly sacked. There is no sign that the Telegraph is planning to get rid of the books pages, although Private Eye has reported that he was told that his job was now "otiose". Nevertheless, at a party to launch the new online Book Club of The Spectator, there were plenty of people prepared to venture that the books pages, in their traditional form, had had their day. The future belonged to bloggers and the view, taken en masse, of the reviewer on amazon.com.

I declare an interest here as a regular book reviewer for The Spectator and other papers. It's not, however, an accident that the best literary editors in London are often among the most admired and respected in the literary world. They walk a demanding path, matching expertise with subject, thinking who will write with some sparkle, who will supply gravitas, who will exercise some sympathy towards a book which may need it, who perhaps may entertain readers with a sharp view of an overindulged author. Casting against type is a favourite game in the theatre; the unexpected commission is as much an art form as any other.

The ones who stick around are very good at it. Kate Summerscale at the Telegraph, Erica Wagner at The Times, Suzi Feay at The Independent on Sunday, Boyd Tonkin at The Independent, Mark Amory at The Spectator and Claire Armitstead at The Guardian – some of whom, before you ask, I write for, some of whom I don't – are ones that stand out in memory or present reputation.

What the books pages offer, I think, is some guarantee of expertise, and some guarantee of responsible disinterest. Neither is total, of course – you don't want expert quibbling with expert, nor a page full of reviewers who don't live in the literary world at all. But there must be some kind of guarantee here, considerably in excess of anything the self-publishers of the internet can offer.

The best literary blogs, such as dovegreyreader.com, are clearly as good as anything written in the paper press, expert and disinterested. Others, frankly, are self-publicists who know very little, and who may, as far as anyone knows, be serving an agenda. Every author knows the obsessively hostile blogger or online reviewer who turns out to be a slighted participant on a creative writing course; those reviews on amazon are interesting guides to what ordinary readers think, but not necessarily the product of any great expertise or experience. Nor are they meant to be.

There is a place, however, for expertise and experience to speak out in a critical fashion, and that place, I think, is going to continue to be the books pages of newspapers. I hope the party chatter that proprietors are looking at eight or 10 pages of book reviews and shaking their heads is just that, chatter. If not, you'll miss them when they're gone, I promise you.

Good night, sweet prince... and give the understudy a break

Trevor Nunn cancelled the press night of his RSC production of King Lear on no more solid an excuse than that his Goneril was unwell. So it was very brave of the company to change their tactics over a much larger loss, and to go ahead with the press night of the Hamlet transfer, despite the fact that David Tennant was laid up with an incapacitating back. The understudy, Edward Bennett, had the terrifying task of facing a paying audience and the baying critics.

Actually, it all went very well – there is always a rush of sentimental goodwill for the understudy on these occasions, and the bar rings to imperfect recollections of the plot of 42nd Street. And if Edward Bennett is good enough to play Laertes in this production, he is probably not such an enormous risk for them to take.

But how heartening that the RSC is taking a stance in some degree against the cult of celebrity theatre, which stands not only in the way of the appreciation of ensemble theatre, but also, much more surprisingly, in the way of a proper appreciation of the gifts of that really able actor, Mr David Tennant himself.

Some places are meant to be hard to reach

The people of St Helena are said to be dismayed that a plan for a £100m airport on their little island has been cancelled. St Helena, once so remote that it was considered a very final place of exile for Napoleon, is still exceedingly difficult to get to. Indeed, it might be more untroubled than in the 19th century, when boats, pre-Suez Canal, always stopped there on the return journey from India. These days, the only way to reach it is by hitching a ride on the South African mailboat.

I'm sure the development-eager people of St Helena wouldn't agree for a moment, but I'm rather thrilled by the failure of the plan. Some places just ought to be hard to get to. There is said to be an airport to Timbuktu, but most people still get to that fabled Malian city by twenty four hours overland from Mopti. Everywhere else seems a little too much of a doddle. The golden road to Samarkand? Change at Tashkent from Heathrow with Uzbekistan Airways. Twenty years ago, going to Syria would have been a spectacular adventure. I've been twice since September.

No, let some places stay as the object of a pilgrimage; let the mailboat be the only means of getting there. Napoleon's final place of exile is definitely one of those places.

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