“Critical condition” has taken a new meaning in Adelaide, the one time ‘City of the Arts’.
It has been coming upon us inexorably. Death by a thousand cuts.
In July, 2024 The Adelaide Critics Circle Incorporated expressed its concern at the news on June 30 that The Advertiser’s long-term, specialist-contributor critics were being thanked for their service and informed:
“We will no longer be running arts reviews so will no longer be needing you as a contributor. This email is to give you 30 days’ notice.”
This news generated a tsunami of distress and anger on social media.
The MEAA, the union representing both journalists/critics, actors, and theatre workers declared:
“The decision of Adelaide’s Advertiser to no longer employ specialist freelance arts reviewers is mindless cost-cutting that does a major disservice to the city’s arts community, audiences, and its readers.”
Others among the torrent of commentary were not as polite.
We have blithely taken for granted the role of arts criticism as a commentary of record on the cultural state of play.
There is, of course, plenty of arts commentary and criticism if one looks around; much more so since the freedom of the Internet gave voice to anyone who wants to have a say. But the official record has always lain in print. Poor, beloved, doomed print.
Traditional print newspapers have been the official organs of “the record”.
They have been universally accessible. They have been “actual” as opposed to “virtual”.
Hence, the perplexity in the arts world when the one newspaper of the one-newspaper city ceases to print specialist arts reviews. Arts companies and practitioners have had to learn to seek them out online and print them out themselves. Even online, they’ve decreased in our major masthead. Critics were getting fewer assignments.
For an organ such as InDaily, it is less problematic. Through the auspices of the Helpmann Academy, InDaily produces Adelaide’s premiere arts publication, InReview. It has a stable of erudite critics and an unprecedented program of mentoring and publishing new up-and-coming critics. There is nothing quite like it. It is a beacon. And it is free.
But it is not alone as a respected online voice of criticism and commentary.
Boutique performing arts sites such as ours, The Barefoot Review, are long-standing, this one now expanded to include the visual arts as well as occasional features and interviews.
Accepted review sites include Glam Adelaide which is quick off the mark with crits as too is Stage Whispers and The Clothesline. There are selected reviews in Broadway World and ArtsHub. There’s TASA, Limelight, Fifty+, and Theatre Travels.
There are reputable personal sites such as those of Murray Bramwell, John Doherty, and Steve Davis. Other independents post on Facebook.
Adelaide’s arts world ever was fecund.
Adelaide was publishing its own newspaper within two years of settlement; its first editions having been produced in London and shipped out. Adelaide had built its first official theatre within two years of settlement. The arts have been fundamental to the fabric of our society.
The Advertiser and for some years, the Adelaide Review, shone the light on the social and professional health of the arts.
In the earlier years, if one delves into Trove, not only were the performing and visual arts fastidiously and occasionally ferociously reviewed, but the critics included commentary on current trends and characters in their reports.
The critics were respected, some revered, and some feared.
Adelaide became known to the national and international arts world as the city with the toughest critics.
It was not that our critics have been harsh. It is that they have been highly discerning and finessed by an education in international arts festivals since 1960.
We just have to accept the cold realities of our times.
The city’s print daily has tried. Print space and the ever-pinching economy have reduced the colourful loquacity of yore.
Upliftingly, following the firing furore, The Advertiser’s editor, Gemma Jones, seemed to countermand the edict with this statement:
“The Advertiser has a proud history of covering the arts, including reviews by respected critics. The Advertiser's commitment to the arts has not changed. The masthead will continue to employ experts, both from external sources and from its reporting ranks which boast talented arts writers and editors with many decades of experience. Readers can continue to look forward to reviews of Adelaide Festival. A number of reviews with very small online audiences will cease to ensure The Advertiser's efforts are directed to arts content with wider appeal.”
Uplifting but also puzzling.
The city’s independent arts advocacy group, The Adelaide Critics Circle, founded in 1996 by then Festival director Robyn Archer, has been in deep discussion about where to for the arts record of this arts city once proudly labelled, car number plates and all, “The Festival State”.
It had bragged an ongoing history of arts initiatives, a veritable arts fecundity after the Playford years. The Dunstan Decade engendered such a national reputation that creatives flocked in to share the energy.
Government support kick-started all sorts of things.
We spawned so many arts talents that we could afford to share them with the world. They were an unofficial state export.
Those golden years are now fragments of memory.
Today, we don’t share talent. We lose it.
We don’t have “Festival State” number plates and our beloved 50-year-old Festival Centre has been squashed and overshadowed by commercial development.
Where once our Festivals and Fringes were blessed with mainstream sponsorship, now they plead.
For many years, the ‘Tiser published daily lift-out sections to cover all the reviews and stories emerging from the Fringe and Festival. Daily program guides showed the stars and grabs from current crits. Festivalgoers carried these lift-outs around with them.
These were the days when the ‘Tiser’s arts policy was to have a reviewer at every opening.
This was a massive logistical feat, and it was sometimes criticised because not all the reviewers were au fait with the arts.
The masthead was investing vast sums in its art support, paid reviews, and in-kind sponsorship going right to the nitty gritty with reams of newsprint. But, just as the Government started to tighten its arts belt, so did the paper.
The Adelaide Critics Circle fell afoul of the arts cutbacks, too. It began with annual arts grants from the Department of the Arts. This enabled it to present the richest performing arts awards in the country: $1500 a pop. They were much envied around the land. Silversmith Christine Pyman was commissioned to create a logo, a figure reaching for the stars, and silver trophies went with the cash awards. The critics wore matching silver badges.
Coopers added money for amateur theatre awards and The Independent Arts Foundation sponsored the coveted “Innovation in the Arts” award.
But changes in government administration and office bearers and the establishment of the government’s own Ruby awards resulted in the Circle’s government funding reducing bit by bit to zero.
Awards for excellence across the board, and even Lifetime Achievement awards, have had their cash and trophies replaced by certificates. Thanks to faithful Coriole wines and other sponsors, and the support of independent venues such as Goodwood Theatres and Holden Street, the awards nights and accolades continue.
The Critics Circle awards are profoundly respected throughout the arts industry. They still stand aloft because they are independently bestowed. Companies and individuals do not have to “apply” for consideration. The critics are out and about keeping on top of current work. Throughout the year they make nominations and at year’s end, they vote.
Meanwhile, we must be philosophical. Print media has been going through tough times. Redundancies and budget cuts have depleted newsrooms. The ‘Tiser has kept an arts presence with magazine features and lively news stories. But lost are the Arts opinion columns which enabled experienced media pundits to provide valuable commentary on the health of the arts.
One does not doubt that the masthead would prefer it otherwise.
One would never say the rationalisation of millennial economy was a matter of choice.
We are in a new era. We need new solutions.
The dear old ’Tiser stands as a little red flag.
The record itself is teetering on non-existence.
Talking to the SA State Library about what is and isn’t archived for posterity one discovers that, yes, the print media and all things print are up there stashed and stored. Old school has a future record. InDaily and The Advertiser’s digital content are harvested and will be available for researchers. All is not lost.
But, for how long? The National Archives also is selective in what is preserved for posterity, mainly official business.
The Internet’s famous WayBack Machine seems to have run out of puff for scouring web content.
And what of posterity, anyway? Who might need it?
What socio-historic minutiae matters in the deep tomorrows of time?
As things stand, with the evolution of the boundless virtual world, ’tis but a mortal dollar deal.
When the Internet was invented, it was hoped to be the vast free library of all knowledge for all. Then “the men in suits” discovered it and saw a profit line. Pornography was their first cash cow. And then, bit by voracious bit, it all became commodified.
Now we pay for everything online and when we don’t pay, it ceases to exist. Domains large and small live the life of their owners.
Even our individual email is out there on that supposedly immense repository we call “The Cloud”. If we don’t pay for our space there, it, too, is gone.
Historians wring their hands. Ephemera rules.
Samela Harris
Samela Harris is founding chair of the Adelaide Critics Circle and a former Arts Editor at The Advertiser. She also was that paper’s Internet columnist and inaugural online editor.
