The past and present of Shakespearean reviewing.

This paper, the opening keynote at the conference, offers a history of theatre reviewing from Hazlitt to the present day. It highlights the changes imposed on the review by journalistic pressures, such as the drastic reduction in the number of words available, as well as theatrical developments including the shift from the reviewer's focus on the principal performer to the production as a whole. This is shown to coincide with the emergence of the director as an increasingly important shaping force in the theatre. The review's role as an archive is also discussed in the light of its importance to a period before the invention of film and sound recording. The paper also considers the relationship between modern star-actors and the theatre ensemble into which they are often uncomfortably situated and it concludes by noting the impact of the blogosphere and pondering the future directions for reviewing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]