Michael Coveney steps down as WhatsOnStage theatre critic

No, I think you may be onto something there Mr. Bear!

Did he touch someone's bum ?

Reading between the lines it does look like he was shoved under a bus, just like us. He leaving excuse I joined 10 years ago in April, so thought it would be cool to leave in April after 10 years.

Which is sad as with the decline of publications and a reliance on the net we are ever losing quality art content and criticism.

I wonder if, like us, Coveney was too critical and it was affecting relationships with stakeholders? It will be interesting to see who his replacement is and the tone of their reviews.

Don't go looking for it in The Stage, either. It seems to have been overrun by teenagers. A headline I saw recently went something like: "Can we all stop banging on about the violence in Cleansed?" 'Banging on', really?!

A lot of their other content these days seems to be either specious arguments, or round-ups of opinions about key topics in the theatrical world - "A and B said this, and C backs them up, but X and Y disagree. One thing's for sure, it's a hot topic!" Um, yeah, thanks, I can read the opinions of A, B etc for myself. What do YOU think, Stage writer?! That's what I'm interested in.

Probably these outlets need to pay their subs and editors enough to actually attract the talent and experience that can make copy shine, and indeed challenge writers to up their game when necessary. But hey, why bother when everyone else is worshipping at the altar of youth, which will produce a few hundred words practically for free?

Using 'banging on' in a headline certainly isn't something I'd expect from a serious, experienced writer. Clearly tilted to the youth market, so I was being mildly hyperbolic.

I do seem to remember they published a piece by a young blogger and had to give Terri Paddock right of reply? The first couple of screengrabbed tweets are just the sort of thing I'm talking about. www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/2015/terri-paddock-offended-no-id-like-set-record-straight/ Again - the blogger may not be 18, but no experienced writer pens an article based on very few facts.

The writer never writes the headline.

What lines are you all reading between?

Er - I believe I mentioned subs...?

Not all of us hate WhatsOnStage. They funded us for over a decade. Give them that.

When they had a party a couple of years ago to announce their new website and the merger with TheaterMania the moderators were invited, and the WhatsOnStage team were all very friendly and optimistic about the future. Terri Paddock described the merger as a marriage. Well, we all know how that turned out. If it was a marriage it was one of those frighteningly weird ones where the police keep turning up and where the eventual reports in the newspapers contain words like "spattered" and "torso". So on the whole I'm OK with WhatsOnStage, even though they did ignore us for the final year. My opinion of TheaterMania is less positive.

I did say I could be reading between the lines incorrectly but it just reads like the sort of thing large organisations put out about someone whose been dropped or moved aside. A teeny bit too eager to explain and a load of info that we neither expect, want or need about the persons reasons and future plans. 

People retire all the time. All he needed to do was say a cheery goodbye at the end of his final review.