When I was first starting out as a theatre reviewer I received some advice from Katharine Brisbane, the doyenne of the form in Australia at that time and now the publisher and much-cherished theatre matriarch! I should choose: either keep my distance from the artists and players and run my own race; or get in close, to mix as much as a could with the very same people whose work I would be writing about. Brisbane herself had chosen the second option and she advised that it was more difficult - but, in her view, more rewarding.

Not a problem if one only ever has to write good things. But it is quite a call to have to sit through a show starring someone who thinks of you as a mate or a colleague and then have to say that this latest characterization, for whatever reason, doesn’t quite work out.

As the critic throws the first stone, he or she must surely be prepared to experience a few lobbed back on occasion. Unfortunately, it is not considered the done thing: actors and writers and directors and designers, etc, are supposed to bite their lip and suffer the grief and humiliation in silence. History tells the artist that most critics will only turn up the revenge dial if you dare to take them on. Sadly that is true. I have tried to sustain a different view and, instead, welcome an impassioned riposte and try and learn something from it.

I have quite a fat folder of letters from artists and audience members. Some make for classic reading, especially those signed 'anonymous'.

Not all feedback arrives in print. One of my first counter-insurgencies was with no less a diva than Judy Davis, as gifted as she is prickly. Seeing this great actress heading towards you from the other side of pedestrian crossing in Darlinghurst, her eyes as cold as fire, is a terrifying experience. I got a huge serve.

25 year later, all I can say is good for her! Such boldness pours into her work. Of the hundreds of shows I have seen, there are only a few that remain truly alive in my mind. And among the handful of singular moments seared in my brain is Judy Davis’s entrance onto the Wharf stage in the title role of Hedda Gabler. Before Davis uttered a single word, we knew her Hedda was angry and profoundly troubled. What followed was one of the truly great nights in the theatre. 

John Krummel, one-time artistic director of Marian Street Theatre and one of our most passionate theatre-makers, simply banned me. In hindsight, rightly so. Krummel picked up on one of my most unprofessional moments and gave me a chance to learn the hard way from my mistake.

I was then still at the National Times. When I returned to reviewing some years later, for the Sydney Morning Herald, I knew I had to re-engage with Marian Street. I heard there was a good show playing, I snuck in, and gave it an enthusiastic response. All was instantly forgiven and off we went to a tasty lunch. To this day Krummel, now retired, stays in touch. He took me to another most fabulous meal at one of Sydney’s better hotels just a year ago and I received a Xmas card from him just a few days back. He is an extraordinary man. Since his stroke, Krummel has even learned to write with his other hand. Thanks to Brisbane, we are mates!

Among others I have infuriated or hurt would likely be John Polson, of Tropfest fame, whose Hamlet I panned. What does my opinion count for now when Polson has gone onto much bigger and better things!

Noah Taylor was so infuriated by my response to his Konstantin (the young writer) in Chekhov’s The Seagull that he obtained my phone number and left a message. Apparently I was ‘a stupid old poofter’. ‘Old?’ I baulked. I returned to see the show again and wrote a polite note, with which I presume Taylor wiped his bum.

Both the above were essentially screen actors and, in my view, their stage skills were not up to the classic roles in which they had been cast. It still happens and it’s a point on which I will hold my ground; there being a similar instance of miscasting in the MTC’s recent The Mad Woman of Chaillot.

A tiff over goodness knows what escalated into close to an ongoing battle with Richard Wherrett, when artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company. That is an article in itself: how a critic must keep a level head especially in turbulent times. Wherrett was particularly crushed when I raised some questions about the cultural relevance of the STC’s enormous production of Nicholas Nickelby. He was not alone: responses included some very high-flyers and one letter of complaint to the National Times signed by Ruth Cracknell and the other ‘thirty-six members of the cast’!

Wherrett, like writer David Williamson (with whom I have also had some celebrated run-ins), wore his heart on his sleeve. I don’t think he ever really understood where my comments - mostly about artistic vision and company style - were coming from. This is because, above all else, Wherrett felt hurt. He was first and foremost a ‘feelings’ person. This had its good side, best witnessed in his most brilliant production of The Crucible, which played several hugely successful seasons. It's a play essentially about hysteria, the wounded and emotions out of control. Wherrett knew the terrain as well as he remembered his bruising childhood.

In the last months of his life we reconciled. Who could not honour an artist who had kept the Sydney Theatre Company on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald for years. Under his leadership, the company and the city became one.

This is a lesson every critic has to learn and one of the advantages of working in close. Not all artists are, first and foremost, creatures of intellect; so one has to consider more carefully, on some occasions, the broader consequences of one’s words. The critic or reviewer has several duties, including frank advice to potential ticket buyers. But on the other hand, even if a show isn’t much chop or, in your view, there's an awful performance,  not a lot is gained in crippling any artist’s confidence.

Sometimes it’s not a lack of acting talent but rather a matter of personal taste. For years, almost everything actor Tony Sheldon did rubbed me up the wrong way. Yet he was popular with audiences and clearly such a nice guy.

Another actor might have sent me a grenade in the mail. Sheldon suffered in silence. One day I received a letter from no less an eminence than Nick Enright informing me that if Sheldon is aware I am in the audience he really does not want to go on. Clearly my commentaries, in this instance, were doing more damage than good. I wrote to Sheldon to express my regret and received this delightful reply:

“Dear James, thank you for your apology. Tony Sheldon.”

He wasn’t giving an inch. And why should he?

It has been fantastic of late to see Sheldon come into his own: hilarious as the gay designer Roger DeBris in The Producers; and in full bloom in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, bringing such authenticity and depth-of-feeling to the ageing transsexual Bernadette.

When it comes to the dangers of following Katharine Brisbane’s advice, I think the toughest moment for me was facing Ruth Cracknell buried up to her neck in sand in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the STC (1991).

I had worked with Cracknell in 1980 on a Shakespeare performance research project led by director Rex Cramphorn, with actors John Gaden, Arthur Dignam, Kerry Walker, John Howard, Jennifer Hagan, Ron Haddrick and others. Working together, we became friends. She was a kind and generous-hearted woman. She was one of Australia’s finest comedians. And somehow, as the years went by, Cracknell also assumed the mantle of our first lady of the theatre. It was air-kisses whenever we met. But she was not to be messed with.

I know others admired her Winnie in Happy Days, but for me Cracknell was never convincing. It was not a role for her. She was clearly hurt by whatever I wrote, keeping her distance from me for some months. It is a tribute to Ruth Cracknell however (I mentioned this in my orbituary published in The Bulletin) that it was she who eventually came back to me. One day, enough of the wound healed, she sidled up and spoke to me in a foyer. Nothing was said about the Beckett, but – to my amazement – I was honoured to discover our friendship was as important to her as it was to me.