When Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry and Alexandra Schwartz sit down to make a case for criticism – for why it matters and what it means and how arts criticism is a fight against death itself – every nerve in my body lights up like a runway and those words find their landing in my heart. No surprise that I am their target audience, but let me tell you why you might be too.
These three – all staff writers at the New Yorker, with Cunningham’s focus on theatre, Fry on the pop-culture beat and Schwartz straddling theatre, literature and, like her fellow hosts, a lot else besides – form an erudite, intellectually curious and engaging company we get to enjoy thanks to Critics at Large, a podcast from the centenarian weekly magazine.
If this sounds effete or too drily intellectual, Critics at Large is anything but. These three discuss everything from Taylor Swift to true crime to therapy with a mental acuity and engaging rigour that are also often funny and push at least my thinking out of its own solitary eddies and into wider, wilder waters.
They launched in October of last year with a discussion of cringecore – as examples, the shows of the comedian Nathan Fielder and the documentarian John Wilson, two masters of the genre who, according to this podcast, sidestep the social contract in distinct and particular ways. But here’s where Critics at Large shines straight out of the gate: not only do we hear their thoughts on the genre, but they also contextualise it within the history of comic delivery, examine the social moment that created it and connect it to our evolving understanding of neurodivergence.
In Their Shoes: Maude Apatow, an Irish stand-up and a tale of sheer chutzpah
Uncharted with Hannah Fry: how numbers, graphs, maths and data are the secret sauce behind some of the biggest scandals
Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division & New Order – An impressive tribute to the bands’ miraculous, affecting art
Who Killed Emma? There’s an extraordinary twist to this podcast about a murder that went unsolved for 19 years
Wait, what? Having watched Fielder’s The Rehearsal – and if you haven’t, I urge you to seek it out and then tell me you didn’t have a complicated and cringing response to its bizarre premise and execution – I’ll admit my own response never got to a consideration of this show from a lens of neurodivergence, and that’s exactly how this trio of critics can light up new neural pathways in the minds of its listeners.
Listen to them on Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk biography and hear them take it from a critique of the author’s reporting and contextual gaps in the narrative he wove to a discussion of the fall in the public’s perception of tech leaders. Listen again as they discuss how allegations of the sexual abuse of Alice Munro’s daughter by the author’s husband affect Munro’s cultural legacy, taking a literary legend to task with seriousness and sensitivity. And listen as they invite guests from the New Yorker’s bench of distinguished contributors to bring their expertise to bear on cultural topics of the day.
Listen, most closely, to what they say about critics. “It’s someone who ... loves experience,” Cunningham says. “It’s someone that looks at any phenomenon ... and wants to extend their life by engaging, paying it attention.” See? You pay attention and love experience? You’re a critic, and this podcast is also for you.
