Perhaps the reason Kenneth Tynan wrote so well about performers was because he was one himself. "Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy" was his motto, and during the 50s and 60s his theatre reviews in the Observer and elsewhere were regularly all four. Grandees and friends were as likely as anyone else to be fired upon. Orson Welles was a patron, but his attempt to play Othello was still savaged by theatre's young Turk: "No doubt about it, Orson Welles has the courage of his restrictions." Lines like that secured him fame, and notoriety, by his mid-20s.
Yet his reverence and knowledge of theatre meant this critic's opinion was valued by those he criticised. Reviewing is a branch of reporting; it too needs compelling stories to tell. Ken Tynan, who had he lived would have been 80 today, was lucky enough to be around to usher in a new era: that of the Angry Young Man. His verdict on one new play gushed: "I could not love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger". For a critic who regularly produced champagne, occasional foaminess was forgiveable. And it helped make John Osborne's reputation.
What would an octogenarian Tynan have made of the age of instant comment, when any passing text-messager counts himself a critic? He probably would have welcomed Web 2.0's democracy and debate. But he also knew when to keep quiet and at the end hardly wrote. "I no longer have a stance, an attitude, what Eliot called 'the core of it, the tone'." Bloggers, take note.
