The Critic is a period drama starring Ian McKellen as a newspaper theatre critic famed for his savagery and it did sound as if it had all the makings of an entertaining and nicely savage little film. But through a surfeit of plot, it rather loses the plot, and the result is a surprisingly bland melodrama with the small-screen feel of one of those Agatha Christies the BBC forces upon us every Christmas.

When is anyone going to properly appreciate what we critics go through?

It’s a pity, as critics don’t often make it on to the cinema screen, unlike war reporters. War reporters, war reporters, why is it always war reporters when I have to sit through a film each week that may be boring? When is anyone going to properly appreciate what we go through?

This is loosely based on Anthony Quinn’s novel, Curtain Call, and is directed by Anand Tucker from a........

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