Hare: Newspaper Critics’ Stars Is A Militantly Philistine Policy

Playwright David Hare rails against The Guardian’s practice of assigning stars to reviews. “Apart from anything else, why does a self-respecting critic agree to a system of grading that renders his or her detailed reaction superfluous? ‘What did the Guardian think of it ?’ ‘Oh, they gave it two stars.’ Why would any critic let their presumably thoughtful work be so diminished?”