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?”
Tag: 01.21.04
Return the Elgin Marbles? To What?
It’s a romantic notion, the idea that the Parthenon Marbles could be returned to the Acropolis, writes Richard Dorment. “Credulous, idealistic or simply out of touch with reality, many are romantics smitten with the idea that the marbles can somehow be “returned” to the Parthenon, which is in fact a total ruin. Not perhaps realising that half of the Parthenon sculptures have been lost for ever, and that surviving sections are now in 10 museums in eight countries, they imagine that, if only Britain would co-operate with Greece, the frieze could somehow be reconstructed.” They are wrong.