Book review - "The Season" by William Goldman

For my money, the best book ever written about the theatre and one of the best books ever written about show biz - or any biz, for that matter. Its Goldman's masterpiece, well one of them, even better than Adventures in the Screen Trade. It looks at Broadway during the 67-68 season and is wonderful - well researched, funny, pungent, skilfully written, thoughtful, opinionated, smart. I've read it a number of times. Peter Bart reportedly tried to match it with The Gross but he doesn't come close, not even in the same league. Broadway is admittedly easier to tackle than Hollywood - more self contained, easier to find out what is going on, but Goldman really tackles his subject and comes up with original thoughts. I'd love to read a follow up article on this book - why are there no Friday matinees? Why did the NY Times keep on Clive Barnes as critic? (I thought Goldman's criticisms of Barnes - perhaps the most skilful hatchet job on a critic in history - were a bit strong but then went and read a selection of NY Times theatre reviews and they are pretty shocking) Why did none of Goldman's very practical suggestions be implemented? (It is a bit full on to expect matinees of Fri, Sat and Sunday - but Friday and Saturday would be worth it). Some of the writing is dazzling - the pieces on Judy Garland, A Day in the Life of Joe Egg, on the critics, Home Sweet Henry; as a critic, Goldman is endlessly astute - his views on popular theatre, musical comedy, Pinter, Neil Simon, etc are still relevant today. Sometimes he is not totally on the ball (while I agree Brendan Gill is one of the worst critics of the 60s, couldn't you argue that Gower Champion only came up with the idea of photographer for The Happy Time after seeing Blow Up because the photographer idea came along late in the piece), and sometimes he is a bit too mean, eg attacking Mike Nichols for receiving all this good press (it wasn't his fault, and who can blame him for occasionally being a bit big headed about it), saying Barbara Bel Geddes "could lose weight" (he could have made this point less nastily), and using the words "a flurry of fags". But this is what happens when you write a personal work, I guess. Magnificent.