Interval drinks time - and there's a reason they call it the crush bar. Photograph: Roger Tooth
This blog, and the newspaper column that accompanies it, is about the things the critics don't tell you. All the things that lurk around the edges of seeing art, whether at the theatre, or in a gallery, or the concert hall.
It came out of discussions with the Guardian's arts editor about how, in the newspaper, we almost never talk about the complete experience of seeing art - the queue for the blockbuster art show, the price of the drinks in the bar, the booking fee cranking up the price of West End tickets, the way the foyer looks, the navigability of the museum.
It's not the critics' job to discuss those matters, and some of them (such as the sore feet in the queue for standbys, the crowds in the popular gallery) they rarely come across.
Yet these things can make or break our everyday encounters with art. If you're crippled by pain from the cramped seats in the gods, you're unlikely to enjoy the theatre. If you can't actually see the pictures you've come to admire, not even the most discriminating aesthete will get much from all those Titians they brought from Venice.
One memorable night I was so suffocated by the heat in the Albert Hall I could barely hear the Prom - but I came to my senses when I turned round to see a woman who had fainted being dragged, stilettos last, through the stalls exit.
This column will try to address those issues, to generate comment and debate about matters that all of us art-lovers come up against all the time, whether they be the pros and cons of surtitles on English music, the madness (or otherwise) of spending £35 to sit in the balcony to watch a Hollywood actor struggling on the West End stage, or just the pure evil that is the mobile phone in the concert hall.
And we want you to join in: let us know what you think about all these things, and more. You can post your comments below. The highlights will be published in a column in the Guardian's art pages every Thursday.
